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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'A rare insight into the world of 10-year old Dujuan, an Arrernte/Garrwa boy living in Alice Springs who is a child-healer, speaks three languages yet is 'failing' in school.
'As he faces increasing scrutiny from welfare and police, his family battle to keep him safe, grounded in language, culture and identity – the only solution they know works.'
Source: Sydney Film Festival.
Notes
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Documentary.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Hot, Wild Heart
2022
single work
essay
— Appears in: Inside Story , October 2022;'Despite its extremes, Mparntwe Alice Springs still maintains a grip'
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The Australian Government Is Not Listening : Education Justice and Remote Indigenous Futures
2020
single work
essay
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 241 2020; (p. 27-36) 'It's nighttime in the desert, moments before the opening credits of the acclaimed feature documentary In My Blood It Runs. We're in a dusty yard enclosed in cyclone-wire fencing with 10-year-old multi-lingual Arrernte/ Garrwa healer Dujuan Hoosan. He's running joyfully, a firework in one hand. The danger and beauty of marking presence in the darkness with explosive devices is captivating. The hand-held camera tracking his exuberance is enchanted and enchanting. Giggles bubble into the open night.' (Introduction)
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Indigenous Voices to the Centre : The Making of In My Blood It Runs
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , December 2020;'In My Blood It Runs was shot in Mparntwe, Sandy Bore Homeland and Borroloola Community, in the Northern Territory. It is the story of a boy called Dujuan, a child-healer being trained in the ways of the Arrernte people and a good hunter who speaks three languages. The documentary shows him getting into trouble at school and risking incarceration.' (Introduction)
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Segregation and Film Pedagogy : Aboriginal Kids Nullah and Dujuan
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , October no. 96 2020;'“…I am dispended”, says Dujuan Hoosan, the Arrente/Garrwa little Aboriginal boy at the centre of the documentary, In My Blood it Runs (2020). “… suspended”, corrects his mother. But “dispended” like “Desperance”, could well be a coinage in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria about a town that disappears. Though Dujuan got the word wrong, what we saw of his experience in the class-room at his Alice Springs public school certainly made him feel dispensable. The vicissitudes of Dujuan’s education are at the centre of this ambitious film, directed by Maya Newell, in collaboration with the boy’s kin group of elders and First Nations educators both local and international, developed over a period of more than three and a half years. Here, I want to explore the fictional child Nullah in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008), together with Dujuan (the former about 7 or 8 and the latter 10 years old), in terms of how theses films present their effective experience of pedagogy. In a volatile social field such as ours is now, with the global Black Lives Matter Movement demanding fundamental changes to entrenched institutional racism, it’s easier and indeed desirable to think together an activist film with an experimental attitude to lived reality, and Australia with its playful high-camp attitude to history as story, by focusing on their common ambition of placing an Indigenous child at the centre of the action. Equally, the imaginative power of these films (qua film), to become agents of pedagogy will be considered, elaborated for our social context.' (Introduction)
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In My Blood It Runs Has a Message about the Love Aboriginal Parents Have for Their Kids
2020
single work
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , July 2020;
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Film Review Roundup MIFF Critics Campus Review In My Blood It Runs, The Dead Don’t Die and Sorry We Missed You
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , August 2019;
— Review of In My Blood It Runs 2019 single work film/TV -
‘In My Blood It Runs’ Review : ‘I Want to Be an Aborigine’
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The New York Times , 11 June 2020;
— Review of In My Blood It Runs 2019 single work film/TV'In plain vérité style, the documentary follows an Arrernte Aboriginal family in Alice Springs, Australia.'
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In My Blood It Runs Documentary Exposes How Education System Is Failing Aboriginal Children
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , February 2020;'Last September, Dujuan Hoosan, a 12-year-old Arrernte and Garrwa boy from Alice Springs, addressed the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva — the youngest person to do so.' (Introduction)
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The Pulse of History : 'In My Blood It Runs' and Indigenous Identity
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Screen Education , no. 96 2020; (p. 72-77)'Depicting a ten-year-old Aboriginal boy's struggle to reconcile his cultural identity with the demands of a Western school system, Maya Newell's documentary raises timely questions about how to synthesise traditional culture and mainstream education - as well as framing its subject's story within the lingering history of Indigenous dispossession, as Suzie Gibson discusses.'
Source: Abstract.
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In My Blood It Runs Challenges the ‘Inevitability’ of Indigenous Youth Incarceration
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 2 July 2020; -
In My Blood It Runs Has a Message about the Love Aboriginal Parents Have for Their Kids
2020
single work
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , July 2020; -
Segregation and Film Pedagogy : Aboriginal Kids Nullah and Dujuan
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , October no. 96 2020;'“…I am dispended”, says Dujuan Hoosan, the Arrente/Garrwa little Aboriginal boy at the centre of the documentary, In My Blood it Runs (2020). “… suspended”, corrects his mother. But “dispended” like “Desperance”, could well be a coinage in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria about a town that disappears. Though Dujuan got the word wrong, what we saw of his experience in the class-room at his Alice Springs public school certainly made him feel dispensable. The vicissitudes of Dujuan’s education are at the centre of this ambitious film, directed by Maya Newell, in collaboration with the boy’s kin group of elders and First Nations educators both local and international, developed over a period of more than three and a half years. Here, I want to explore the fictional child Nullah in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (2008), together with Dujuan (the former about 7 or 8 and the latter 10 years old), in terms of how theses films present their effective experience of pedagogy. In a volatile social field such as ours is now, with the global Black Lives Matter Movement demanding fundamental changes to entrenched institutional racism, it’s easier and indeed desirable to think together an activist film with an experimental attitude to lived reality, and Australia with its playful high-camp attitude to history as story, by focusing on their common ambition of placing an Indigenous child at the centre of the action. Equally, the imaginative power of these films (qua film), to become agents of pedagogy will be considered, elaborated for our social context.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2020 winner Capricornia Film Awards — Community Award
- 2020 nominated Capricornia Film Awards — Best Feature-length Production
- 2019 nominated Film Critics Circle of Australia — Best Feature Documentary
- 2019 nominated Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards — Best Feature Length Documentary
- Alice Springs, Southern Northern Territory, Northern Territory,