My Survival as an Aboriginal

My Survival as an Aboriginal (1979)

Essie Coffey gives the children lessons on Aboriginal culture. She speaks of the importance of teaching these kids about their traditions. Aboriginal kids are forgetting about their Aboriginal heritage because they are being taught white culture instead.

Date of release
1979-07-10
Runtime
51m
Genres
Documentary, Family, History
Director
Essie Coffey

Casting

Interesting facts

My Survival as an Aboriginal is a 1979 Australian documentary film directed by Essie Coffey, and produced by Coffey, Alec Morgan, and Martha Ansara. It was the first documentary directed by an Aboriginal woman, and was screened at several international film festivals, winning awards at some of them. The central themes of the film include Indigenous land rights in Australia, and the determination not to assimilate into white Australian culture, but to keep Aboriginal culture alive. A sequel, My Life as I Live It, was released in 1993.

Production

My Survival as an Aboriginal was the first documentary film directed by an Aboriginal woman, and, according to Romaine Moreton "one of the first Australian films where an Indigenous Australian was directly involved in deciding how she and her community would be represented". It was directed by Essie Coffey, and co-produced by Coffey, Alec Morgan, and American Australian filmmaker Martha Ansara.

The film was funded by Australian Film Commission, and features songs sung by Coffey.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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