David MacDougall

Constructed as a series of vignettes of station life, the film focuses particularly on the relationship between Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, and a 16-year-old trainee, Shane Gordon. The episodes are linked by Sunnys reflections on learning the hard way from experience, and from the lessons taught him by his father. With intertitles to introduce each episode, the film is eloquent in its depiction of Sunnys patient approach to managing his...

David MacDougall is Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and Convenor, Program in Visual Research, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University, Canberra. Lucien Taylor is the author, with Ilisa Barbash, of Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos (California). Formerly, he was the editor of the journal Visual Anthropology Review, published by the American Anthropological Association....

Narrated by the linguist and anthropologist Peter Sutton, this documentary observes his work with a family in far north Queensland, outside Aurukun, to map their hereditary "clan country". The aim of the older members of the family is partly to protect their land and prove their attachment to it, for purposes of dealing with the government and industry, and also to demarcate the country from claims by other Aboriginal groups. Angus Namponen, with...

Three horsemen is one of several films that the MacDougalls made in and around Aurukun in the far north of Queensland. It is a deeply moving portrait of three generations of Aboriginal stockmen at Ti-Tree station, 80km south of Aurukun, a former cattle out-station of Aurukun Mission and now a settlement for people who regard Ti-Tree as their home. Bob Massey Pootchemunka, about 75 years old, has lived and worked all his life on cattle stations. He...

At the request of a dying Tiwi man and his family on Melville Island, this film was made of the pukumani (bereavement) ceremony to follow his death. The film observes the family through the long period of preparation for the ceremony, following age-old traditions. Dancing and face-painting are rehearsed, to the family's satisfaction, and because "things should be right for this film". For the two days of ceremony, the community moves to Carslake Beach...

Harambee is a traditional Swahili chant meaning heave-ho or pull together the slogan for a united Kenya. Harambee Day or Independence Day is celebrated in this small town in North Kenya with political speeches and an auction at the native school.

One of the major works produced by the AIAS Film Unit, this documentary observes the profound effect on an Aboriginal community of political and bureaucratic decisions made far away. Although specific to time and place, the film is timeless and universal in its observations of a conflict between an Indigenous minority and a powerful government. The film presents an insiders view of events that followed an announcement made without warning on 13 March...

The film focuses on the life of Peter Boru, a sixteen-year-old former herdsboy who has become a boarding school student. Peter's life is juxtaposed to a traditional herdsboy, Dokata. The question, "Education for what?" is posed when both tradition and modern forces common to developing areas make the economic outlook bleak for young people, even if they are able to complete local educational requirements.