There’s a reason the film Sweet As feels so authentic.
In the coming-of-age movie, a teenager is sent away on a “photo-safari for at-risk kids”.
It’s a transformative trip on a bus to The Pilbara for Murra (Shantae Barnes-Cowan), whose brilliant smile lights up her face, but Barnes-Cowan is also great at wearing a multitude of expressions – wonder, foreboding, sadness, joy or “love eyes” at her first crush.
The natural beauty of the Pilbara is captured on camera and there’s a story in every picture, with a cute caption to match. It’s a heart-warming narrative, that in no way shies away from the harsh realities of youth for some.
It feels genuine because it was inspired by the real-life story of the film’s director, Jub Clerc, who — as a teenager — went on a similar photo-safari for at-risk children.
“That character, Murra, is also my nieces, and my aunties. She’s all of us mob,” Clerc told Daniel Browning at a Birrarangga Film Festival (BFF) panel over the weekend that discussed the Making of Sweet As.
The film was screened at the festival a day earlier in Naarm/Melbourne at a sold-out session, but mark your diaries because Sweet As will be released in cinemas across the country on June 1.
It’s a must-see film, which Clerc said has resonated with audiences around the world, winning awards in Toronto and Berlin and capturing the imagination of people who’ve approached her after screenings to share how they’ve connected with the film.
Sweet As is one of the many Indigenous films from across the globe that have screened at the Birrarangga Film Festival, which wraps up on Tuesday night.
The closing film, Muru, is also inspired by actual events and is about a police sergeant in New Zealand who must choose between his badge and his people.
BFF has been an illuminating, gripping and entertaining festival, run every two years.
Along the way this year, there have been, amid many other offerings:
- Kyindoo Wilam (Learning Place): a selection of animations and short films from across the globe
- Wild Indian (USA)
- The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (Australia)
- Stellar (Canada)
- Don’t Bury Me Without Ivan (Russia)
- Charter (Sweden).
Whose Story is it Anyway?
At a festival panel entitled Whose Story is it Anyway?, the BFF’s artistic director, Tony Briggs, was joined by actor/writer Matthias Luafutu — who stars in A Boy Called Piano (New Zealand) — about his father’s time as a state ward in the 1960s and the intergenerational impacts of these experiences. The film, by Fijian director Nina Nawalowalo, screened on Saturday.
The director of the opening night film, Bones of Crows (Canada), Marie Clements, also joined the panel, as did Jodie Bell, the curator of Connections (Australia): a series of short films from First Nations directors.
While on the panel, Bell told a packed room that filmmaking is all about collaboration, which is why it’s so important to pick well when deciding who you’ll collaborate with.
“Very few filmmakers do it themselves,” Bell said.
“They always have to have a team around them. And, so, it’s about finding that right team and, of course, we don’t have enough Indigenous storytellers with the skills that are required to be able to have a full crew yet.
“So, we’re having to collaborate with non-Indigenous people.
“I think the key is … making sure, if it’s our story, then we need to be the ones driving that story.
“And people can throw ideas into the mix, and that’s great, and help write, but — at the end of the day — those cultural nuances, or those important story elements have to come from the Indigenous side of the collaboration.
“Because, at the end of the day, we’ve still got to go back to our community and be accountable to our mob, to our family, and everything else, whereas everyone else kind of walks away.
“And so, we’re going to be answerable to anything that comes up in that story.”
The closing film, Muru, will screen Tuesday, March 28, at 6.30pm at ACMI in Naarm/Melbourne.