As part of the Writing and Society Research Centre’s Other Worlds project, the eminent Waanyi novelist Alexis Wright, along with Ben Denham, Ben Etherington, and Anthony Uhlmann, travelled to Doomadgee, a community on Gangalidda country in the Gulf of Carpentaria where they spent several days collaborating with activist and community elder, Clarence Walden. With assistance of cameraman Andre Sawenko, they recorded his gripping story of growing up in brutal conditions on the Doomadgee mission in the 1960s and his emergence as a staunch leader of his people through the 1980s and 90s. From this material, Denham, Sawenko and Wright produced the film Straight From the Heart.
The film documentary was premiered at the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Art and Social Science’s ‘World Literatures and the Global South Conference’ (23-25 August, 2019). The documentary premiere was preceded by a Keynote address by Alexis Wright, ‘A Self-Governing Literature: Who Owns the Map of the World?’, and followed by an Address and Q&A with Clarence.
For full details of the project see Telling the Story of the Gulf.
