Macquarie research reveals Australia’s first Indigenous film maker

A new documentary about Australia’s first Indigenous film maker will feature at Sydney’s Antenna Documentary Film Festival this month, and was made in collaboration with Macquarie University researcher and associate lecturer Dr Alec Morgan.

Ablaze was co-directed with Tiriki Onus and focusses on Tiriki’s grandfather, the late Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta man William “Bill” Townsend Onus Junior. Bill was a well-known Indigenous activist, but the film explores his lessor known history as a film maker following the discovery of a silent film of his which was found unlabelled in a vault.

The film recently premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and in December won the best screenplay gong at the Australian Writer’s Guild ‘Awgies’.

Dr Morgan, an Honorary Associate Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature and Macquarie University, was contacted by the National Film and Sound Archive about footage that he came to believe was filmed by Bill.

“I have always been interested in Australian visual history, especially as it relates to Aboriginal history, and the way it fills the silences and gaps. Bill Onus left an indelible impression – and the makings of a film that I hope will put him back in the picture.”

Tiriki Onus is continuing to build on Bill’s legacy and is Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the Victorian College of the Arts:

“It doesn’t particularly excite or interest me that much, the idea of [his] being first. What really does excite me is the way that [his legacy] has grown – the fact that now here I am as his grandson, 70 years later, being able to tell his story, to carry on in his footsteps.”

Ablaze will screen in Sydney on Thursday 3 and Saturday 12 Febuary and tickets are on sale now.