| Contact | |
|---|---|
 Poster | |
| Directed by | Bentley Dean Martin Butler |
| Edited by | Tania Nehme |
| Music by | Antony Partos |
| Distributed by | Contact Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 78 min. |
| Country | Australia |
| Languages | English Martu Wangka |
Contact is a 2009 Australian documentary film that tells the story of 20 Martu people who in 1964 became the last people in the Great Sandy Desert to have come into contact with Europeans.
In 1964, a Blue Streak test missile launched from Woomera by ELDO was expected to land in the Percival Lakes area of Western Australia, an area traditionally belonging to the Martu. Two Native Welfare patrol officers, Walter MacDougall and Terry Long, were sent to the area to make sure it was uninhabited. When they arrived, they located a group of 20 Martu women and children in the area. The group had never seen white skinned people before and upon seeing the patrol officers they wanted nothing to do with them, and they ran away from them. Despite the presence of the Martu people in the area, a missile was still fired from Woomera, but it went far off course, landing hundreds of miles away from the lakes.
After several months, a second missile was scheduled to be deployed and Walter MacDougall and Terry Long returned to the area with two interpreters, Punuma Sailor and Nyani, in an attempt to take the group of Martu women and children away from the Percival Lakes area. When the group was located this time, the patrol officers tied their ankles together to stop them from escaping and took them to Jigalong mission.
Throughout the film, the experiences of the Martu women and children are described by Yuwali who was 17 years old when she was a part of this group back in 1964. Now 62 years old, she shares her memories of growing up around Percival Lakes, her dingo Yuntupa and the first time that she saw the patrol officers and their car. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
A book about the same events documented in Contact was released in 2005, entitled Cleared Out: First Contact in the Western Desert by Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali. [5] [6] [8]
| Ceremony | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History | Prize for Australian History | Won [9] [10] |
| Australian Film Institute Awards | Best Feature Length Documentary | Won [9] [10] |
| Walkley Award | Best Coverage of Indigenous Affairs | Won [9] [10] |
| Film Critics Circle of Australia | Best Feature Documentary | Won [9] |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | Multimedia History Prize | Won [9] |
| Sydney Film Festival | Foxtel Documentary Prize | Won [9] [10] |
| Australian Directors Guild | Best Achievement in Directing for a Documentary | Won [9] [10] |
| Australian Screen Sound Guild | Best Achievement in Sound for a Documentary | Won [9] |
| Australian Cinematographers Society | Bronze Award for Cinematography: Documentaries, Cinema and TV | Won [9] |
| Chicago International Film Festival, United States | Gold Hugo for Best Television Production & Best Documentary: Social/Political | Won [9] [10] |
| Miradas Film Festival, Canary Islands | Best Documentary | Won [9] [10] |
| Annu-ru Aboro Film Festival, New Caledonia | Best Documentary: Pacific/Oceania | Won [9] [10] |
| Planete Doc Review Film Festival, Poland | Ecumenical Dialogue Award | Won [9] [10] |
| FIFO, Tahiti | Le Grand Prix du Jury | Won [10] |
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HMAS Woomera was an Australian naval vessel operated by the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built in Fremantle, Western Australia, she was one of a class of 32 wooden motor vessels intended for the Department of Commerce, but later allocated to the Army. She initially entered service in late 1945 as AV 1356 (Ashburton), before being transferred to the RAN on 23 January 1946 and commissioned as Woomera. The ship's main role was carrying stores and dumping obsolete ammunition surplus from all three military services at sea. In this role she visited many ports in Australia and New Guinea.
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