film
february 2007
topic
Kanyini
In a nutshell, KANYINI was born out of my desire to understand and connect with Indigenous Australia.
KANYINI is a story told by an Aboriginal man, Bob Randall, who lives beside the greatest monolith in the world, Uluru in Central Australia.
Based on Bob's own personal journey and the wisdom he learnt from the old people living in the bush, Bob tells the tale of why Indigenous people are now struggling in a modern world and what needs to be done for Indigenous people to move forward.
A tale of Indigenous wisdom clashing against materialist notions of progress, this is not only a story of one man and his people but the story of the human race.
Being part of the dominant culture in a recently "colonised" country I had next to no contact whatsoever with Indigenous Australia for the first 26 years of my life. In fact it was only in April 2004 that I realised I didn't have one Indigenous friend. Now, in a country where Indigenous people have lived for at least 40,000 years, this fact was more than crazy, it was downright ridiculous, so I set off to the desert pretty much straight away, to learn about Indigenous Australia - in a blackfella kinda way - through communication and relationship and following the direction of the wind.
As Melanie says, one minute she was sitting between Uluru and Kata Tjuta with Bob and his family on a clear, starry night, the next, 'Kanyini' was made and in her hands and Hopscotch wanted to distribute it. It's been an exciting and challenging journey and in retrospect, a magical one too.