One Mind, One Heart director Larissa Behrendt discusses her documentary about the bark petitions

ONE MIND, ONE HEART uncovers the extraordinary story of the three landmark Yirrkala Bark petitions that sparked the flame towards recognition of Aboriginal rights. In August 1963, two bark petitions – traditional documents prepared and signed by Yolngu people – were sent to the Australian parliament and became the first documented recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law. When a fourth bark petition is found in Derby, Western Australia in 2022, the community begin the ceremony of guiding its journey back to Yolngu Country. The repatriation provides the opportunity to track the long political campaign – through petition, song, dance, campaigning – to keep culture strong and to have avoice for country.

Before One Mind, One Heart premieres January 19th on SBS, Nick L’Barrow spoke with director Larissa Behrendt about the significance of the bark petitions in First Nations culture, making Australia’s landscape a character within the film, and how filmmaking is a continuation of Indigenous storytelling traditions.

Nick: Larissa, it’s a pleasure to meet you and thank you so much for taking the time to chat.

Larissa Behrendt: Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Nick: This is an impactful documentary about something that is incredibly important to Indigenous Australian history. But I’m curious to know, as a filmmaker, at what point did you realise you had a story here that was worth following?

Larissa Behrendt: That’s a great question to start with. I had known about the importance of the barks because I was a lawyer in a former life, and they are really quite a central legal document. And I had met Claire Wright, who was writing a book on them. And she had mentioned the repatriation, and that in itself was a great story, but I wasn’t sure that it was my story to tell.

That was until I became aware that one of the key participants of the repatriation was Yananymul Mununggurr, who I had admired from afar for a very long time. She’s been a very strong spokesperson for her community, and the fact that she was involved, and her father was the last surviving signatory of the petition, just gave it that heart that I felt really made it a story that was worth investing the time into. It was probably her presence in the story that really convinced me. It was something that I felt really passionate about.

Nick: You bring up in the documentary that there’s always been speculation about how many bark petitions there are, and then a fourth one appears, leading to what you end up following in this story. Do you remember when you first heard about the fourth bark petition?

Larissa Behrendt: Well, it was when I met Claire Wright actually, who was doing a writer’s festival. And I had already known there was two in Parliament House, and I knew there was one in the National Museum of Australia. But I was never aware of the fourth one, and neither was Claire.

Stan Davey was gifted the bark petition, and he knew where it was. There’s so many different ways that things are lost. They’re lost to public discourse, but of course, the remain very much a part of the knowledge of the people who are more intimately involved in the story. So, I would credit Claire with the idea of repatriating it back. She did suggest it to Stan Davey’s ex-wife, who had the painting, to put the train in motion for that as well.

Nick: There is so much incredible archival footage in this film that tells the story of the bark petitions and their importance in First Nations people having their voice heard. How did you come across this footage, and what was the process of selecting what was going to work for this story?

Larissa Behrendt: I guess growing up in the Aboriginal community, and having a family that was really heavily involved in politics, you know? I really got a lot of my training, not from law school, but in the Redfern community. I knew a lot of the history that we lived with. The ’88 marches, the land rights movement, the impact of the Northern Territory intervention. The team I work with at Jumbanna, we were heavily involved with the communities that were seeking to raise concerns about those policies. So, they felt like moments that I’d lived with.

So, you do get a kind of sense of what you know you want to tell in the story. Then it’s a matter of going through the archives and really working with the archivers to try and see what’s in there that might come to light. I can remember seeing things from the time, and you do try to dig them out.

But the most magical thing I have to say about working with archive, particularly, every story is different because you’ll find different characters. So, you might have a different search because you’re dealing with a different person than you might have looked at when you were looking for something similar.

I tend to bring politics into all of my films, so we’re covering a lot of similar issues. But when you’re looking at it from a different community or different leader or different family’s perspective, you might be dealing with archive you didn’t know you had. And it was magical seeing that some of these communities had archival footage that they weren’t even aware of and being able to bring that to light.

I mean, the Yolngu people have such a control over their story. They are their own story tellers. They’re very much in charge of that, and they have a wonderful archive of their own. Say for a figure like Sam Watson, whose daughter Nicole Watson is an Aboriginal lawyer who gives wonderful insight in the film, we uncovered footage of him being jostled around by the police in one of his protests, and that was something we’d never seen before.

There is a joyousness about going through that archive, and then it’s really a matter of the editor and myself trying to work out how we tell the story with the archive that’s there.

Nick: Then on the other end of the filmmaking spectrum is how beautiful and cinematic this film looks. How much conscious decision goes behind intentionally making, particularly the Australian landscape, feel so cinematic?

Larissa Behrendt: I really appreciate that observation, because I think particularly as First Nations filmmakers, we’re really aware that our country isn’t just beautiful. It’s not just there for its visual beauty. It’s actually a character in a story like this. It’s a part of the Yolngu world. And importantly, it’s the stakes. They did this petition because mining was occurring on their land with no consultation. They have really fought to have their inherit ownership of this country, recognised by their own laws. And it’s all entwined with that beautiful country.

I always feel like the country is a real character, and consciously about that, especially now that we’ve got this wonderful technology of drones, people love those beautiful, cinematic landscapes. One of the things I’m always encouraging my peers to do is not just to rely on the beauty of the drone shots, but to try and capture the personality of the country. And you can’t necessarily do all of that from the sky. You can do that with the close ups of the animals that are living there. The ecology that’s living and breathing in our country.

So, it is a conscious decision to always start with country, and finish with country. Which you would have noticed we do in the film. But it’s about bringing life to it in a way that’s more than just showing how visually beautiful it is. It’s about showing that this is actually what the stakes are.

Nick: The documentary also highlights, and you mentioned earlier the Yolngu people’s power of telling the story, how important storytelling is in First Nation people’s culture. This might be a big question, but where do you feel documentaries and filmmaking fall into continuing and upholding the storytelling traditions of Indigenous Australians?

Larissa Behrendt: Yeah, I think there’s many ways in which we’ve used our oral traditions to continue telling stories through new media and new mediums. And filmmaking is really great way to do that, because it is so visual. It’s a way of bringing to life those stories.

But I think you can see it in the way that mob always loved country music, and they story tell through that medium of song. That’s also a way in which we keep those traditions strong. So, in a way, I feel like it’s still our ancient tradition, but we’ve been savvy at using new technology.

And I see that when I go out into remote communities, you know? There are kids who are filming elders, recording elders on their phones, and editing on their phones. So, the take up of that technology is really important as a way in which we’re keeping our culture strong. It’s important for us as First Nations people to continue in that tradition.

But I think importantly too, I’m drawn to it, not just because it allows me to tell those stories that are important to us, but it’s a way in which we can invite non-Indigenous people into our stories. I think it’s a very moving way of doing that.

Having been a lawyer before and knowing that you can only get a certain amount of people to take up your issue with legal arguments, or with a lecture, that the beauty of storytelling is a really important part of our national identity. For me, it’s a wonderful medium of inviting a broader audience in to listen to these stories that they might not be aware of and help their understanding of indigenous issues.

Nick: I’ll close out on this, and there was a line of dialogue that I found very profound towards the end of the film. And while this is a documentary that does show a very tumultuous issue that occurred, and is occurring still, for First Nations people, this line really stuck out to me as the core heart. The line is, “I’m taking everything that is a negative, and turning it into a positive within myself”. And I just thought that was so powerful for this story. How important was it for you to have that theme run throughout this documentary?

Larissa Behrendt: I’m so glad you picked that up, because to me, I always approach each story from what would say is a strengths-based approach. And maybe because I grew up in the community, I know how hard it is. I know what poverty is. I know the trauma people have. But I have always seen strength. And I particularly have seen strength in women.

I think there’s a theme to all of my storytelling. If there is a strong woman there, then I know how to tell that story. The same with After The Apology, and the strong women in that film, as well. I see strength and resilience. For me, it’s about showing that there is still that strength there. I think it’s wonderous.

I often say that it’s amazing that we are the world’s oldest living culture, and that we can still say that after the impact of colonisation, it speaks to a resilience and strength we have. I don’t think you can tell First Nations stories without acknowledging and embracing and putting centre stage that strength. Especially the strength of our women.

Thank you so much to Larissa for her time, and to SBS and NixCo PR for organising the interview. One Mind, One Soul premieres on SBS, January 19th.

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Nick L'Barrow
Nick L'Barrow
Nick is a Brisbane-based film/TV reviewer. He gained his following starting with his 60 second video reviews of all the latest releases on Instagram (@nicksflicksfix), before launching a monthly podcast with Peter Gray called Monthly Movie Marathon. Nick contributes to Novastream with interviews and reviews for the latest blockbusters.