The life of a young Aboriginal girl dealing with her mother’s unexpected death is the subject of Thomas’ debut feature film Emu Runner, which was screened at various festivals before arriving in Jakarta for the 2020 Australia Indonesia Cinema Festival.

Some may know Australian cinema through The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and the Mad Max franchise, but there is so much more to the country’s culture that you can discover through movies, as filmmaker Imogen Thomas can attest.

While drag queens in the desert and postapocalyptic muscle cars can be an entertaining watch, you might not come across them every day. 

What you can observe, though, are the lives of Australia’s Aboriginal people and their connection to the universe and to one another.

A look into the life of a young Aboriginal girl is the subject of Thomas’ new film Emu Runner. 

The story focuses on 9-year-old Gem (Rhae-Kye Waites) and her connection to an emu — considered a creator spirit by the Ngemba people — as she and her family deal with the sudden and unexpected death of her mother.

The movie, Thomas’ first feature-length film, has been screened at various festivals such as the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the 2019 Gold Coast Film Festival, taking home the PKF Best Australian Independent Film Award at the latter.

Emu Runner made its Indonesian premier in the 2020 Australia Indonesia Cinema Festival (FSAI) in Jakarta, which ran from Feb. 14 to 28 across five cities.

Thomas, who was in town to give a masterclass as part of FSAI 2020, attended the Jakarta screening of Emu Runner at CGV Grand Indonesia, where she answered questions from the audience after the show.

Grieving: The movie explores different issues, from short life expectancy, racial tensions faced by Indigenous Australians to losing a loved one. (Courtesy of Imogen Thomas Films)

Thomas — who wrote, directed and produced the movie — described the creation of Emu Runner as a community-based project, having involved a local community of Indigenous Australians in the town of Brewarrina in New South Wales. Many of the locals even play parts in the movie.

“I have a very long relationship with this particular community. It spans 15 years, and in that time I suppose it has been about building relationships with people in the community, in particular some of the important stakeholders of the community,” she told The Jakarta Post in an interview.

In creating the movie, Thomas worked closely with Frayne Barker, a Ngemba Aboriginal woman from Brewarrina and the director of a preschool dedicated to Aboriginal children. Barker served as the indigenous script consultant for Emu Runner as well as Mixed Bag, a 15-minute short also shot in Brewarrina.

Released in 2008, Mixed Bag also became a festival fixture, but was screened for the community of Brewarrina first with Thomas feeling that the community’s response to it was the real test. 

From the short, she said they dreamed of a larger project after seeing the value and benefit of projects that bring indigenous and non-indigenous communities together.

In Emu Runner, tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can be seen, but Thomas noted that the film explored it in a “very gentle” way.

“I think we very much have to look at our history and our past, and there are some very dark chapters in our foundation as Australians, especially with our First Nations people.

“I can’t talk about broader issues; I just talk about the relationship to the community I work with, but I suppose I can see that geographical isolation has also meant there are a lot of economic disadvantages for its community members,” Thomas said, adding that short life expectancy was also explored in the movie.

But more generally, the theme of losing people and its impacts on us — grief and loss — was what she wanted to explore in the movie, relating the emotions to the cultural history of the community members.

“I suppose that was very important first, to touch on a universal theme. Of course, the story looks at other issues; very much looks at the role of institutions like social services might have, in the sense that sometimes outsiders do not spend time listening to a community and feeling like they might know best rather than realizing that sometimes the answers can be found within the leaders of the community.”

Thomas said Barker advised her to create a story that touched on real issues, but at the same time avoided a story line that divided the community.

“We wanted a story that people could connect with. Yes, it tackles some truths about some of the realities for Indigenous people, but at the same time we felt what’s important is showing that we wanted to celebrate the country, the culture, and a projection forward.”

She likens this to the emu, which is unable to walk backward, noting this also reflected how nature mirrored the temperament of the main character Gem.

The nature of the emu is also reflected in Gem’s father Jay Jay (Wayne Blair), as it is the male emu that raises the young to adulthood, as most female emus leave to lay eggs in another nest.

The film project began when an elder visited Thomas in Sydney. They both poured their time and energy into crafting the script. However, during the process, someone connected to the script passed away.

Personal: Filmmaker Imogen Thomas finds it is important for the community of Brewarrina to feel that Emu Runner is their film as much as it is hers. (JP/Riand Alfiandy)

Because of this, Thomas came to a decision with Mary Waites, Rhae-Kye’s grandmother who also played Gem’s grandmother, to create Emu Runner with whatever means they could come up with.

As such, much of the project’s funding came from personal finances as well as the goodwill of both the community and film industry people.

As a non-indigenous filmmaker creating an indigenous-centric script, Thomas held the view that what put her in good stead was time — gained through building a relationship and trust with the people of Brewarrina.

“You can’t go in there projecting what you want to say. You have to be very mindful and understanding of the community. [...] Frayne said to me this film, which is fiction and does not reflect anyone’s story in particular, is everyone’s story,” Thomas said, adding that Barker made it a priority for the film to deliver a message of hope.

“The process is probably of equal value to the film. You make a film, but the film doesn’t just end with a five-week shoot. You’ve still got that engagement that continues to this day,” she said. 

“I will be, as soon as I get home, calling communities. I will be telling them about this experience. [...] It’s very important that they have a sense that this is their film as much as my film.” (ste)