White Skin Black Spirit
Dharmadeva
Maleny Film-Maker joins search for identity
Tue, Jan 12, 2010
White Skin Black Spirit … my search for identity is a brave and uplifting story told on film by Maleny film-maker Paul Alister. In his 46-minute documentary Paul records the remarkable emotional journey of Crystal Waters resident, Terri-Anne Goodreid, who travelled to the Northern Territory to trace her aboriginal roots and discover her lost family connections.
Paul’s film is being shown at the Maleny Festival of Australian Film this month and has been sold to the Message Stick television series. It will be broadcast by ABC TV during 2010. Paul told the Hinterland Times the background to the making of White Skin Black Spirit.
“Terri-Anne’s story reveals what it is like for someone who is very white-looking going into an aboriginal world and being accepted,” says Paul. “She now identifies fully as an aboriginal person. Getting material to capture that journey and that emotional process was very difficult, particularly on a shoestring budget”, he adds with a smile. Paul first heard of Terri-Anne’s story through his role on the management committee of the River School and she was a parent. “I didn’t want to come across as patronising”, says Paul. “Her story sounded very interesting and at the time she was actually writing a thesis on it.
We started from there and it took well over a year. I just fitted in the filming with the corporate video work that I do. “ Like many documentary film makers Paul is usually self-funded and takes the gamble that he will recover at least his costs by later sales of DVDs, or to a broadcaster. “I did develop a rapport and I think we became quite close.
We started filming when I heard that she was going up to the NT for the funeral of her adopted mother’s mother. I thought that would be a good place to start.” “I couldn’t actually film that ceremony because it was women’s business. And I must say that I often felt I was tagging along, filming and talking to aboriginal people who had never seen me before. Paul says that documentary film-making is often a matter of luck, being in the right place at the right time and of course having the mindfulness to capture good sequences when you can. “And you need the right equipment … you don’t want gear that takes a long time to get ready because a lot of the best shots are accidental. Some of the really great shots you don’t discover until you’re in the editing.”
Paul acknowledges that Terri-Anne is what filmmakers regard as ‘good talent’, that is she looks good on camera and is articulate without being shy or withdrawn. At times this was crucial in the making of White Skin Black Spirit as Terri-Anne confronted her emotional past as a child or suddenly met aboriginal relatives who were completely unknown to her. For example, when Terri-Ann went to her old orphanage it was very emotional and the tears came for her. Yet she worked her way through the process on camera and it is a sequence that has affected people through her sincerity and honesty. “It was a bit like a video diary for her” says Paul. “From my point of view it was often a case of wanting to be there, but not be there, because it was very sensitive stuff.”
Paul’s next documentary has also attracted the attention of ABC Television, and it’s also close to home. He plans to reveal the success beneath Maleny’s unique Ananda Marga River School, an institution he helped establish more than 15 years ago.
White Skin Black Spirit will be show at the Maleny Community Centre at 10.30am Saturday January 9. DVD copies of the film can obtained at www.alistermultimedia.net/Whiteskin.htm
White Skin, Black Spirit:My Search for Identity
Terri Anne has white skin, blue eyes and light hair. Abandoned as a baby with her two sisters, she grows up in a tangled series of orphanages and foster homes, finally meeting her mother again in her mid-teens. But when she is 28 her mother shares the biggest secret: her father, who died when she was a baby, was Aboriginal.
Over the next two decades, Terri Anne travels a passionate journey of self-discovery that changes her life's direction completely. Her Aboriginal identity grows stronger and more meaningful as she gradually develops confidence and finds her new role as an ambassador for other white skinned Aboriginals.
In this unique and penetrating documentary we get an intimate look at one woman's struggle to find peace and belonging in her life with "White Skin, Black Spirit." Terri Anne tells her story passionately, and we follow her outback, to a completely different world, as she travels bush to prepare for secret women's business. We meet her desert mob who share their life, culture and struggles, in remote Northern and Central Australia.
Includes interviews with Bobby Randall and other Aboriginal leaders as they discuss their own experiences in "bridging the cultural divide."
Length 48 minutes
http://www.alistermultimedia.net/Whiteskin.htm
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