Paul Gurrumuruwuy, Fiona Yangathu, Jennifer Deger, and David Mackenzie
2012 | Australia
The complex sorrows and joys of Christmas in northeast Arnhem Land, one of the largest and most isolated tracts of Aboriginal land in Australia, are imbued with the transformative cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Narrated by Yolngu director Paul Gurrumuruwuy, this film examines how stories first brought by missionaries in the mid-20th century have become the basis for celebrating the enduring place of the ancestral in the modern world. Manapanmirr, an expression that refers to a state of being joined or brought together, is a theme that pervades this moving film, which grew out of co-director and producer Jennifer Degerʼs ongoing explorations of Yolngu image-making and aesthetics, a two-decade project of creative collaboration with Yolngu artists and performers.
Co-presented by Center for Religion and Media, NYU.