The agency of the subject: Yolngu involvement in the Yirrkala Film Project

Abstract

From the outset of the Yirrkala Film Project, the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land were quick grasp the possibilities of a film that would record the impact of a huge open-cut bauxite mine on their community. From the first meeting called to discuss the project they began telling filmmaker Ian Dunlop what they wanted him to film. As the project expanded into a long-term engagement, Yolngu became active participants, even producers, of films for which they had a clear purpose, and with which they continued to engage–– making the most of the medium's potential for both intra- and cross-cultural communication. The Yirrkala Film Project can, in retrospect, be seen as the beginning of an ongoing campaign of Yolngu cultural advocacy through film, into which other filmmakers following in Dunlop's wake have subsequently been co-opted. In a culmination of all this work, the current Mulka Project––a new media initiative at the Buku-Larrnggay arts centre at Yirrkala––is now training a new generation of Yolngu to make films of their own.