Presenting Elders

Image Credit: PhotoAccess

Grant Funded Project

A partnership between PhotoAccess, Gen S Stories and the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) Yarauna Centre, this project was made possible through the 2018 ACT Adult Community Education (ACE) Grants Program.

A goal of the project was to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Elders who have experienced barriers to learning and were looking towards future employment pathways and opportunity. Presenting Elders brought seven indigenous women living in Canberra together to tell their stories, and to gain new skills in media production in a community-based learning environment.

Participants completed the project over several weeks of meetings, story circles and creative workshops. Jenni Savigny of Gen S Stories, as well as PhotoAccess photographer and videographers led the group through the making, while the Yarauna Centre provided cultural support. With no prior experience required, they each scripted, storyboarded, researched, narrated and edited a film, drawing on their personal and shared image archives.

Short Film Collection

Weaving together personal images and their own words to create distinctive self-portraits, the emerging filmmakers tell of country, of leading the local community as a Ngunnawal elder, and of living on Ngunnawal land. Meet a mother of the year and the proud granddaughter of a famous shearer. Discover family generations who inspired a passion for improving community health and education. Experience a wedding at the aboriginal tent embassy and join a road trip that became a journey of healing.

Film-makers

Jennie Gordon
Maria McIntosh
Stephanie
Monique Sutherland
Roxanne Brown
Caroline Hughes
Selina Walker

We acknowledge that these films were made on land owned by the Ngunnawal people, traditional custodians of the Australian Capital Territory and region. We pay respect to their continuing customs, including their elders past, present and emerging.

Wherever these films are screened we acknowledge the traditional owners of the country. We pay our respects to them and their cultures and to the elders past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island viewers are advised that some of the videos contain images of people who have died.