I’m a bit late in the run to be sharing this, but after doing the Reconciliation Film Festival earlier this year I’ve been once again enjoying the Fan Force TV format to watch the NAIDOC Film Festival.
Like the earlier lockdown-proof film festival, all films have a question-and-answer sessions after each screening with community members involved in the making of that film. Everyone who speaks brings such insight to the film, be it a documentary or scripted piece, which obviously enhances the understanding of the contexts and content, especially useful for these films as they don’t get a tonne of other media hype.
There’s still a few films to go and some re-screenings are planned so if you have the time and the cash (far cheaper than the movies for a subscription that can play for the whole family) I really recommend it. There are a lot of First Nations films on the platform in general that you can see at any time, so if you haven’t managed to catch In My Blood It Runs or The Australian Dream as yet, that’s a place to see them, too.
For my international friends, NAIDOC stands for National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee, and NAIDOC week has a long history here in the place now known as Australia, located on the unceded sovereign lands of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters and seas where I live and work.