Banjo Morton, and six other Aboriginal stockmen, forced the owners of the vast Lake Nash cattle station in the Northern Territory to pay him and other Aboriginal stockmen £1 a month when he led a walk-off from there in 1949. “We were getting paid only in rations, clothes and boots and we had a good win although we still grumbled it wasn’t enough,” he says.
Sixty years later Banjo’s leading another walk-off, this time from Ampilatwatja, a settlement in central Australia’s red desert country, where his Alyawarr people say they have been treated as outcasts and isolated from white man’s decision-making under the 2007 federal indigenous intervention.
Banjo’s War will be a feature documentary that re-creates the 1949 walk-off (possibly the first walk off by Aboriginal stockmen in the Northern Territory) and follows Banjo’s most recent walk off in the attempt to create a self sustaining community from mulga scrub on his land at Honeymoon Bore and exploring what the Intervention has meant for many.
It’s a story about culture, self-determination, freedom, empowerment and hope and a story that explores many issues of Indigenous Australia. Using animation to re-create the 1949 walk-off, this documentary hopes to achieve what has not yet been done. Combining animation with recorded oral histories and footage from the 2009 walk-off, this film will be vibrant, dynamic and created to appeal to a wide audience.
Banjo’s War is more than just a feature documentary. It is a multi-layered project to help raise awareness which includes a website/blog for videos and photo’s; social networking through YouTube and Facebook; media and publicity; workshops with the community; assisting the community with recording history, stories and culture and more.
