Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival will bring the next wave of black cinema to Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum from 30 August to
1 September 2009.

The 10th anniversary of the Message Sticks Film Festival includes Warwick Thornton’s Samson & Delilah, which won the Camera d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival along with seven new short films by new Indigenous directors, including debuts by Deborah Mailman and Leah Purcell, and Fire Talker, a new documentary about the life and times of Charles Perkins directed by Ivan Sen.

It is the second year that Bunjilaka has hosted the Message Sticks Film Festival and Caroline Martin, Manager, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre is thrilled to be part of the national tour. “It is an absolute privilege to work with Blackfella Films and to bring internationally acclaimed films by and about Indigenous people to our audiences”.

“The Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival provides audiences with a fantastic opportunity to immerse themselves for free in work from Australia’s leading Indigenous filmmakers,” said Sally Riley, manager of Screen Australia’s Indigenous Branch.

Message Sticks Film Festival is curated by award winning filmmakers Rachel Perkins and Darren Dale from Blackfella Films. It is the only festival in this country that is solely committed to presenting films made by Indigenous people, and all screenings are FREE.

In addition to Warwick Thornton’s Camera d’Or winning Samson & Delilah, this year’s festival will include a retrospective of Thornton’s best short films including Greenbush, Mimi and the much-loved award winning Nana. Thornton has a close association with the festival as all his past short films have screened at Message Sticks. Making Samson & Delilah is a new 55 minute documentary shot and directed by Beck Cole and produced by Kath Shelter.

Ivan Sen’s latest documentary Fire Talker uses exclusive archival footage from the early 1960s to 2001 and builds an intimate and honest portrait of Charles Perkins’ life bound inexorably with the most dramatic political shifts in Australian Indigenous policy.

A highlight of the festival promises to be The New Black, a new generation of Australian filmmakers whose work will be showcased in a series of seven 10-minute dramas. These films by emerging Indigenous writers, directors and producers premiered at Sydney Opera House Message Sticks in May 2009. The New Black is the latest initiative from the Indigenous Branch of Screen Australia and features stories from Far North Queensland, Bourke, Alice Springs, South Coast NSW, inner west and western Sydney.

The projects were financed with production support from the ABC, NSWFTO and the Pacific Film and Television Commission.

Message Sticks Film Festival will screen at Melbourne Museum from August 30 – September 1. See over for program details.

Message Sticks Film Festival 2009 program

Sunday 30 August
11am – 12.30pm Warwick Thornton Retrospective
1pm – 3pm  Samson & Delilah
3.30pm – 4.30pm Making Samson & Delilah

Monday 31 August
   The New Black
6.30pm – 7.15pm  Session 1:  Nia’s Melancholy (10 mins)
     Bourke Boy (10 mins)
     The Farm (11 mins)
     Aunty Maggie & The Womba Wakgun (11 mins)
7.30pm – 8.15pm Session 2:  The Party Shoes (11 mins)
                              Jacob (11 mins)
              Ralph (10 mins)

Tuesday 1 September
6pm – 7.30pm  Fire Talker

Where: Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum, Nicholson Street Carlton
Cost: All films are FREE
Further information: Phone 13 11 02 or visit http://museumvictoria.com.au/bunjilaka
Presented by Blackfella Films in association with Screen Australia, The National Film & Sound Archive, Sydney Opera House and SBS Television.

Proudly supported by Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum.

BLACKFELLA      FILMS