| Gurrumul | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical film poster | |
| Directed by | Paul Damien Williams |
| Produced by | Shannon Swan |
| Cinematography | Gavin Head, Dan Maxwell, Katie Millwright, Matt Toll |
| Distributed by | Madman Films |
Release date |
|
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
Gurrumul is a 2018 Australian documentary film about the life of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2018 to positive reviews. [1] The film was released in Australia on 26 April 2018.
Celebrated by audiences at home and abroad, indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was one of the most important and acclaimed voices to ever come out of Australia. Blind from birth, he found purpose and meaning through songs and music inspired by his community and country on Elcho Island in far North East Arnhem Land. Living a traditional Yolngu life, his breakthrough album Gurrumul brought him to a crossroads as audiences and artists around the world began to embrace his music. [2]
Director Paul Williams became the in-house filmmaker at Skinnyfish Music, Gurrumul's Darwin-based record label in 2012, and came up with the idea to make the documentary. Williams said "I really wanted to show the difficulty that an indigenous person from a remote traditional community has interfacing with the white, balanda, world. In particular interfacing with the expectation of celebrity, the expectation of fame and the expectations of what was rapidly becoming an international music career." adding "I'd really love it to be on school curriculum after the theatrical release is done because the kind of conversations that can be had around this film, and its central themes about Australia, about the future of this country, about the future of race relations, I think is really important." [3]
Gurrumul was met with positive reviews from critics and audiences, sitting on 8.9/10 on the Internet Movie Database.
Luke Buckmaster from The Guardian gave the film 4.5 out of 5, saying "Core to the film is the question of what it means to be an Indigenous Australian in the modern world." He added: "For Gurrumul fans, the film is obviously a must-see. For those unfamiliar, or vaguely familiar with his work, it’s an even greater treat: they will be entertained, enthralled, perhaps in some small way changed." [4]
Stephanie Bunbury from The Sydney Morning Herald said "Gurrumul was blind from birth but... he could play any instrument he picked up. He played with Yothu Yindi, then with his own group Saltwater Band before releasing a self-titled solo album in 2008.... He won ARIA Awards; he played for the Queen and for Barack Obama, continuing all the while to live on Elcho Island, hunting and fishing. The film makes it clear this wasn't always an easy mix." [5]
| Award | Date of Ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asia Pacific Screen Awards | 29 November 2018 | Best Documentary Feature Film | Shannon Swan, Paul Damien Williams | Won | [6] |
| Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards | 3 December 2018 | Best Feature Length Documentary | Paul Damien Williams, Shannon Swan | Won | [7] |
| Best Cinematography in a Documentary | Dan Maxwell, Katie Milwright, Matt Toll, Gavin Head | Nominated | |||
| Best Editing in a Documentary | Shannon Swan, Ken Sallows | Nominated | |||
| Best Sound in a Documentary | Pip Atherstone-Reid, Simon Rosenberg | Nominated | |||
| Best Original Music Score in a Documentary | Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Erkki Veltheim, Michael Hohnen, Matthew Cunliffe | Nominated |
In 2019, the film won a Grand Jury Special Prize (Prix Spécial du Jury) at the FIFO film festival in Tahiti. [8]
Yothu Yindi are an Australian musical group with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members, formed in 1986 as a merger of two bands formed in 1985 – a white rock group called the Swamp Jockeys, and an unnamed Aboriginal folk group consisting of Mandawuy Yunupingu, Witiyana Marika, and Milkayngu Mununggur. The Aboriginal members came from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula in Northern Territory's Arnhem Land. Founding members included Stuart Kellaway on bass guitar, Cal Williams on lead guitar, Andrew Belletty on drums, Witiyana Marika on manikay, bilma and dance, Milkayngu Mununggurr on yidaki, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu on keyboards, guitar, and percussion, past lead singer Mandawuy Yunupingu and present Yirrnga Yunupingu on vocals and guitar.
Mandawuy Djarrtjuntjun Yunupingu, formerly Tom Djambayang Bakamana Yunupingu, and also known as Dr Yunupingu, was a teacher and musician, and frontman of the Aboriginal rock group Yothu Yindi from 1986. He was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Yolŋu people, with a skin name of Gudjuk.
Elcho Island, known to its traditional owners as Galiwin'ku (Galiwinku) is an island off the coast of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located at the southern end of the Wessel Islands group located in the East Arnhem Region. Galiwin'ku is also the name of the settlement where the island's largest community lives. Elcho Island formed part of the traditional lands of the Yan-nhaŋu, according to Norman Tindale. According to J. C. Jennison, the Aboriginal inhabitants were the Dhuwal, who called themselves the Kokalango Mala
The Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) is a 360-bed Australian teaching hospital located in Tiwi, a northern suburb of Darwin, Northern Territory. It is part of the Top End Health Service, which covers an area of 475,338 km2 (183,529 sq mi). RDH is the only tertiary referral hospital in the Northern Territory, also providing complex, high-level clinical services for patients in parts of Western Australia and Southeast Asia. Following the 2002 Bali bombings, the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre was established by the Australian Government, bolstering Royal Darwin Hospital's capacity to respond to trauma and support deployed medical assistance teams during crises and medical emergencies in the Asia-Pacific.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, commonly known as Gurrumul and also referred to since his death as Dr G. Yunupingu, was a Yolŋu Aboriginal Australian musician. A multi-instrumentalist, he played drums, keyboards, guitar and didgeridoo, but it was the clarity of his singing voice that attracted rave reviews. He sang stories of his land both in Yolŋu languages such as Gaalpu, Gumatj or Djambarrpuynu, a dialect related to Gumatj, and in English. He began his career as a member of Yothu Yindi and later Saltwater Band, and his solo career brought him wider acclaim He was the most commercially successful Aboriginal Australian musician at the time of his death. As of 2020, it is estimated that Yunupingu has sold half a million records globally.
Saltwater Band are an Indigenous roots band from Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island, around 560 kilometres from Darwin. The members are Yolngu and they sing mostly in Yolngu languages. Their songs are a mixture of traditional songs and reggae/ska influenced pop. One member of the band, the late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, is a close relative of Mandawuy Yunupingu of Yothu Yindi and was a past member of Yothu Yindi.
Gurrumul is the debut solo album for Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. It is performed in a mixture of both Yolngu and English. The album has received praise for connecting on a deeply emotional level, as it tells the story of a persecuted people group as well as the singer's own suffering with both racial persecution and his visual impairment.
Shellie Morris is an Indigenous Australian singer/songwriter who plays a mix of contemporary folk music and contemporary acoustic ballads.
"Treaty" is a protest song by Australian musical group Yothu Yindi, which is made up of Aboriginal and balanda (non-Aboriginal) members. Released in June 1991, "Treaty" was the first song by a predominantly Aboriginal band to chart in Australia and was the first song partly in any Aboriginal Australian language to gain extensive international recognition, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play singles charts. The song contains lyrics in Gumatj, one of the Yolngu Matha dialects and a language of the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in northern Australia.
"Bayini" is 'spiritual love song' performed in Yolngu Matha, an indigenous language of Northern Australia. It is track three on Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu's album, Rrakala, which was released by Skinny Fish Music on 15 April 2011.
Rrakala is the second album from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. It is performed in Yolngu. Gurrumul plays piano, drums, nylon-string acoustic guitar, electric and acoustic guitars.
The Gospel Album is the third studio album from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. It is performed in a mixture of both Yolngu and English. The album was announced in May and is described as 'a uniquely Indigenous approach to gospel songs with an expanded sound that combines new hymns, and reimagined gospel songs' The album was released on 31 July 2015 and reached number three on the ARIA charts in August 2015.
Djarimirri is the first posthumous album and fourth studio album from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. The album was completed just weeks before his death in July 2017 and presents traditional songs and harmonised chants from his traditional Yolngu life with orchestral arrangements. The album was released on 13 April 2018 and debuted at number one on the ARIA Charts, becoming Yunupingu's first number-one album. It is also the first time an Australian indigenous language album has peaked at number one, and he is only the second Aboriginal artist to have a number-one album, following Jessica Mauboy's The Secret Daughter: Songs from the Original TV Series in October 2016.
Live in Darwin, Australia is the first live album by Gurrumul. The album was recorded in Darwin, Australia, and includes six tracks lifted from Gurrumul's self-titled debut studio album.
Jimmy (1952-1968) was a male chimpanzee and animal actor, trained by actor and magician John Calvert. He performed in the 1956 film Dark Venture, alongside Calvert. Jimmy was also featured in Calvert's magic shows in the United States, and onboard his luxury yacht throughout Asia and Australia. He died of a heart attack at the age of 16 at the Perth Zoo.
Another Country is a 2015 documentary film about the intersection of traditional Australian Aboriginal culture and modern Australian culture. It features actor David Gulpilil narrating a story about his home community of Ramininging in the Northern Territory.
The NT Indigenous Music Awards 2008 were the 5th annual National Indigenous Music Awards.
The Festival International du Film Documentaire Océanien (FIFO), in English literally "International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival", is an annual film festival held on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. Variant names in English include Pacific International Documentary Film Festival and International Documentary Film Festival of Oceania, but the event is commonly referred to in English as just FIFO, FIFO film festival, or FIFO Tahiti.
The Gurrumul Story is the first compilation album from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. The album was announced on 6 August 2021 and was released on 10 September 2021 on digital platforms, CD, deluxe CD+DVD and vinyl. The deluxe edition features a DVD including a 25-minute documentary covering Yunupingu's life and rise to stardom.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu (1971–2017) was an Aboriginal Australian musician
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