AustLit

Film provides a mediation space in which to negotiate the imaginative, the narrative, the social, and the political, and especially the past, present and future - in the seemingly unbridgeable gap between pre-colonial story and contemporary technology. This article argues that the films Atanarjua and Ten Canoes are complex and authentic Indigenous cultural artefacts that represent a space of Indigenous self-determination and self-representation in the modern world. They attempt to authenticate their legitimisation of ancient traditions and their positive representation of traditional life to current generations through their contribution to a bright future in the continuance of the millennia-old oral storytelling tradition. As such, they are regarded as watershed representations in the ever-evolving canon of Indigenous oral storytelling in their respective countries, and throughout the wider global context.