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Projecting Indigenous Talent
Indigenous talent is showcased in the collaborative creation of the short film, Project Petey DNA.
Following the story of Jaxon, a young aspiring indigenous filmmaker, and his efforts to pull together a documentary for film school, Project Petey DNA is a fifteen minute mockumentary on urban indigenous youth culture that goes in unexpected directions.
Starting from his production office in a toilet, Jaxon is faced with stolen gnomes, masked invaders, explosions and police raids that take him down the most unpredictable routes to completing his documentary. The process of making Project Petey DNA, however, was one project that successfully managed to achieve what it set out to do from the beginning.
Having been accepted into the international Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival in Canada last month and coming out with nominations for "Best Short Drama from Near and Far" amongst 50 other contenders from around the world, this fifteen minute short film has been well received to say the least. Closer to home, in May of this year, the film was selected to screen in the Dungog Film Festival. Such positive reception and nominations for awards, however, were just bonuses that naturally followed a more passionate impetus for beginning the project.
Inspired by Australia's demand for indigenous screen actors and the apparent shortage of indigenous filmmakers in the industry, the fifteen minute short film was produced to showcase the talent and skill development of students taking part in the Aboriginal Theatre program, run by the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAPPA).
As the program's graduates have been notably employed in Western Australian screen productions, including successful children's series such as Ocean Star and Lockie Leonard, as well as award winning TV shows such as The Circuit and The Mary G Show, it is no wonder that these students were recruited to be a part of the film.
Graduates of the program have also featured in Western Australia's annual indigenous film festival Deadly Yarns and feature films such as Stone Bros and the upcoming Bran Nu Dae.
To get the project running, Rick Brayford, Head of the Aboriginal Theatre program and Andrew Lewis, Associate Director of the WA Screen Academy, developed a proposal that was jointly funded through ECU's Industry Collaboration Scheme and ScreenWest. ScreenWest then funded David Milroy to channel his talent as a playwright and theatre director in writing and directing for the screen, while the Collaboration Scheme funded the production side of things with crew sourced from the WA Screen Academy and WAAPA's Production and Design program.
In the spirit of collaboration and the great sense of community that would arise from such a production, Project Petey DNA has been distributed on DVD to remote and regional areas of the students' homelands so that family groups, friends and Elders can also take a look at the performances and skills of their relatives. With excited discussions and hopes that Project Petey DNA will be broadcast nationally, this project will surely draw people's attention to the indigenous talent we need in the local industry.
Picture caption: Ian Michael in Project Peter DNA.