Acclaimed documentary to be screened in Torquay and Lorne

THE Lorne Theatre and Torquay’s Australian National Surfing Museum are set to host special screenings of an award-winning documentary exploring the Yolngu Nation of Northeast Arnhem Land in celebration of Reconciliation Week.

Directed by former Oberon High School student and teacher Sinem Saban, Luku Ngärra: The Law of the Land shares the story of Reverend Dr Djiniyini Gondarra, an initiated clan leader within the Yolngu Nation who has dedicated his life to upholding the traditional law of his people.

Challenging Western ideas of freedom and control, the film offers audiences an intimate look into Yolngu culture and highlights how colonisation and the enforcement of a foreign system of law has brought chaos into the lives of the Yolngu people.

Saban said there’s a lot of learn from the Yolgnu’s holistic law system which is “all about keeping things in balance”.

“It’s just this incredible system that has obviously maintained the oldest living culture in the world of over 60,000 years. There’s a reason why it works.

“There’s an incredible amount of freedom in Yolgnu law and I think people have been experiencing and yearning for that.”

The documentary was filmed over a period of five years and came from the now 17-year friendship between Dr Gondarra and Saban.

“He is kind of like our own Martin Luther King, in all honesty, but not many people know about him,” Saban said.

“He doesn’t seek attention; he just gets on with what needs to be done.”

She praised his “amazing gift” for calling things out and pulling people together.

“I think that Australia’s ready for that. I think that’s only way we can progress: actually calling things out, telling the truth, but coming together.”

“I used to be a political activist and I feel like there needs to be a spiritual angle in political activism because we can come up against each other in anger.

“Dr Gondarra can get angry, but he has a very quick capacity to just channel that in and change the energy into something that’s positive and inclusive.

“Because things are polarising so much, there’s a lot more anger and I feel like we have to turn that anger into calling everyone together and I feel like that’s what he’s taught me personally.”

Saban encouraged audiences to leave any attachments to their identity at the door and “walk in as a human”.

“I’d like audiences to come without any kind of a preconditioned idea of what this film is going to be about because it’s not an angry activist film. It’s confronting, but it’s heart opening and it’s expansive.

“It will take people on a journey of where First Nations people have been but it’s not going to make you feel guilty. It’s going to make you feel like you’re part of the journey and that you, as a non-Indigenous person, are very important in the journey to walking together.”

Luku Ngärra: The Law of the Land will screen in Lorne tomorrow (Saturday, May 25) and in Torquay on Tuesday, May 28.

Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A with Saban.

For tickets head to lornetheatre.ourgoldenage.com.au or fan-force.com/screenings/