Programme Four

Kanohi ki te Kanohi- Face To Face
Programme 4

Too Many Captain Cooks, 1988
Director:Penny McDonald
Courtesy of Ronin films, Australia
18 mins/Betacam SP

Paddy Wainburranga of the Rembarrnga tribe from the centre of Arnhem Land in Northern Australia, relates and paints the Rembarrnga history of Captain Cook. Between Cook discovering Australia, and Aboriginal people discovering Cook, there are various historical truths. For non-Aboriginal people Cook is the progenitor of European settlement; for Aboriginal people he is the archetypal first white man to invade Australia.

Contemporary Aboriginal accounts of Captain Cook bear little relationship to the history up-held by non Aboriginal Australians.

Home Away From Home,
Director: Maureen Blackwood
Courtesy of Women Make Movies, USA
11 mins/35mm

Miriam lives with her four children in a cramped suburban house near her workplace, Heathrow Airport. The constant passage of aircraft overhead only serves to remind Miriam of how far removed from her rural African roots she is, of how little her own children know of that side of themselves, especially her eldest daughter Fumi, with whom Miriam seems constantly at odds. Home Away From Home is a bittersweet film which uses minimal dialogue throughout, instead the sounds of the various locations, heightened and layered form the soundtrack, which together with the body language and facial expressions of the actors tells the story.

Turning Brown and Torn in Two - Tall Dwarfs, 1983
Director: Chris Knox
Courtesy of Flying Nun records
Music video, 3 mins/Betacam SP

On Cannibalism, 1995
Director: Fatimah Tobing Rony
Courtesy of Women Make Movies, USA
6 mins/3/4 inch

King Kong meets the family photograph in this provocative experimental video exploring the West’s insatiable appetite for native bodies in Museums, world fairs, and early cinema. Intertwining personal narrative about race and identity in the US with layered footage, artifacts and video effects, On Cannibalism looks back at anthropological truisms with outrage and irony.

History and Memory,
For Akiki and Takashige, 1991
Director: Rea Tajiri
Courtesy of Women Make Movies, USA
32 mins/3/4 inch

This moving, exquisitely structure exploration of personal and cultural memory juxtaposes Hollywood images of Japanese Americans and WWII propaganda with stories from videomaker Tajiri’s family. Rumination on the difficult nature of representing the past, the artist blends interviews, memorabilia, a pilgrimage to the camp where her mother was interned, and story of her father, who had been drafted pre- Pearl Harbor and returned to find his family’s house removed from its site. A haunting testament to Japanese American experience.

Akona Te Reo - Moana and the Moa Hunters, 1996
Director: Ross Cunningham
Courtesy of Tangata Records
Music video, 3 mins/Betacam SP