Spotlight on Indigenous Cinema Alliance
The Indigenous Cinema Alliance will celebrate 10 years of highlighting the best in global Indigenous film and television. The exciting line-up of movies and events will elevate and celebrate work on a major international level as part of the 2025 European Film Market and the Berlinale.
Ornmol (White Ochre)
Regen Studios
Ornmol (White Ochre) is an observational documentary that turns the camera onto a group of kids in the Kupungarri region of northwestern Australia. While the documentary has no formal storyline, the focus of the children is to prepare for one of the most important events of the year, the Mowanjum Festival. They spend their days searching for ochre, a natural clay pigment they use to paint themselves for the festival.
There’s an intimacy to Ornmol, even though the viewer might not understand the cultural importance of the festival or what is expected of the kids. Even without prior knowledge to contextualize the short documentary, the viewer can sense the care that’s being put forward. The generations of experience and tradition come to the forefront as a celebration that can be sensed beyond the small community. Toward the end of the film, there’s a close-up of a young boy having his stomach painted with the ochre. It’s a gentle, tender moment of reflection that lingers after the film ends. Above all, Ornmol is an outburst of joy.
Akababuru: Expression of Awe
Luminiti
Kari (Heluney Nerio Niaza) is a little girl who’s afraid to laugh because she’s been teased by the other kids at school. While wandering, Kari meets Kera (Wayra Andrea Aguilar Tascón), a young woman who laughs freely and often. Kera encourages Kari to embrace her laughter by telling her the local legend of Kiraparamia, a woman who dared to laugh in the face of a man. The next day at school, Kari lives through a modern retelling of the story to gain confidence for herself.
The story of Kiraparamia is portrayed through a stop-motion animation segment where elements are made of beads. From the clothes of Kiraparamia and the man in the story to the sun and the fruits on the tree, the beadwork is simply stunning. It provides a texturally interesting counterpart to the paper dolls of the characters and the background settings. These sequences imbue a sense of magic into the short film and create an almost tactile sensation for the viewer. Akababuru provides a means to preserve this story as well as the Emberá-Chamí language. It’s an act of preservation and storytelling that is nothing short of an act of love.
Wilfred Buck’s Star Stories
Door Number 3 Productions
There was a time when space was at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Humanity shared a sense of awe for the grandness of the universe that twinkled above. Wilfred Buck’s Star Stories is designed to be presented in planetariums and domes. The celestial display is accompanied by the retellings of four stories adapted from Kitcikisik (Great Sky) by Wilfred Buck, with Buck narrating the presentation as well.
Star Stories is transfixing and mesmerizing, as starry images dance overhead. It’s so easy to fall back in love with the grandness, beauty, and wonder of the sky above. This XR experience is an ode to our past, present, and future, and pays tribute to the interconnectedness with which we should view the human experience. It’s an awe-inspiring project that is as expansive as it is intimate.