AIATSIS Collection (1/2)

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (later AIATSIS – the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) was established as a statutory authority in 1964. The Institute quickly established a film unit to act as an archive of filmed material and also to record material of ethnographic and historic significance. Part of this work also involved the preparation of films for public release, and until the early 1990s, the AIAS Film Unit became responsible for some of the most significant works of ethnographic film then produced in Australia. This collection of some thirty significant documentary works will be progressively released by Ronin Films in association with AIATSIS, where possible in re-mastered form and with associated interviews with filmmakers.

For an excellent study of the AIATSIS films, see the monograph, "Bringing to Light" by Ian Bryson (published in 2002 by Aboriginal Studies Press, AIATSIS).

CAMELS & THE PITJANTJARA [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1969 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 45 min

A classic documentary from 1969 which records the Pitjantjara people's use of feral camels in central Australia, capturing and taming them, and using them as pack animals. more

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CASS - NO SAUCEPAN DIVER [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1982 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 12 min

Cass is a part-Aboriginal, part-Malay, part-Scottish man who used to work as a diver in the pearling industry in Broome, Western Australia. A film by Wayne Barker, his grandson. more

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COLLUM CALLING CANBERRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1981 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 56 min

A cattle station's view of negotiating with a distant bureaucracy. more

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CONISTON MUSTER [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1972 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 28 min

A classic documentary about the annual muster on Coniston cattle station, north-west of Alice Springs, and its Aboriginal head stockman, Coniston Johnny, who narrates much of the film. more

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FAMILIAR PLACES [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1980 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 50 min

Mapping traditional clan country in north Queensland. more

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FULL CIRCLE [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1987 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 20 min

A story of Aboriginal stockmen at Robinson River Station on traditional Garawa land, in the Northern Territory. more

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GOODBYE OLD MAN

1977 (G) 66 min

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. A film by David MacDougall. more

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GOOD-BYE OLD MAN [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1977 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 66 min

A Tiwi Island Bereavement Ceremony. more

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HOUSE-OPENING, THE [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1980 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 42 min

"House-opening" ceremonies in a contemporary Aboriginal community combine elements of Aboriginal, Torres Strait and European cultures in dealing with death. A film by Judith MacDougall. more

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IT'S A LONG ROAD BACK [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1981 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 13 min

The story of one woman's struggle to regain her Aboriginality more

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LINK-UP DIARY [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1987 (G) 87 min

On the road with Link-up, an organisation that re-unites Aboriginal families more

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LOCKHART FESTIVAL [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1974 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 33 min

A classic documentary about an Aboriginal dance festival organised by the Lockhart River community in far north Queensland. more

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LURUGU [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1973 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 56 min

The revival of an initiation ceremony for young men on Mornington Island in north Queensland. more

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MACDOUGALL TAPES, THE

2017 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 261 min

Extended conversations with David and Judith MacDougall about their years with the Film Unit of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, 1975-1987. During this time, the MacDougalls made a series of eleven documentary films that were acknowledged world-wide as landmark achievements in ethnographic cinema. more

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MAKE IT RIGHT! [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1988 (G) 21 min

MAKE IT RIGHT! is a unique record of the landmark 1988 Barunga Festival of Aboriginal Sport and Culture at which Prime Minister Bob Hawke made commitments (unfulfilled) to negotiate a treaty with Aboriginal people. more

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MAKING A BARK CANOE [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1969 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 16 min

Two men make a bark canoe in the swamps of coastal Arnhem Land – a process simply observed by filmmaker Roger Sandall. more

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MALBANGKA COUNTRY [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1975 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 29 min

The Malbangka family leaves the social problems of Hermannsburg in central Australia to return to their own traditional land and set up their own independent settlement. more

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MOURNING FOR MANGATOPI [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1974 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min

An elaborate Tiwi mourning ceremony, performed as an affirmation of traditional culture. more

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SOMETHING OF THE TIMES [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1985 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 41 min

The story of Aboriginal and white buffalo hunters in the remote wetlands of the Northern Territory in the 1930s. more

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SONS OF NAMATJIRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1975 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 47 min

A group of celebrated Aboriginal artists and their relationship with the outside world. more

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