Ten Canoes facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ten Canoes
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Rolf de Heer Peter Djigirr
Produced by	Rolf de Heer Julie Ryan
Written by	Rolf de Heer
Narrated by	David Gulpilil
Starring	Jamie Gulpilil
Cinematography	Ian Jones
Editing by	Tania Nehme
Distributed by	Palace Films and Cinemas
Release date(s)	29 June 2006 (2006-06-29)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	Yolngu Matha English
Budget	A$2,200,000
Money made	A$3,511,649

Ten Canoes is a 2006 Australian drama film directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr and starring Crusoe Kurddal. The title of the film arose from discussions between de Heer and David Gulpilil about a photograph of ten canoeists poling across the Arafura Swamp, taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson in 1936. It is the first ever movie entirely filmed in Australian Aboriginal languages. The film is partly in colour and partly in black and white, in docudrama style largely with a narrator explaining the story. The overall format is that of a moral tale.

Synopsis

The film is set in Arnhem Land, in a time separate of Western influence, and tells the story of a group of ten men in a traditional hunting context. The leader of the group, Minygululu, tells the young Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil) a story about another young man even further back in time who, like Dayindi, coveted his elder brother's youngest wife. The sequences featuring Dayindi and the hunt are in black and white, while shots set in distant past are in colour. All protagonists speak in indigenous languages of the Yolŋu Matha language group, with subtitles. The film is narrated in English by David Gulpilil, although versions of the film without narration, and featuring narration in Yolŋu Matha, are also available.

Minygululu tells a story of the great warrior Ridjimiraril, who suspects a visiting stranger of kidnapping his second wife. In a case of mistaken identity, Ridjimiraril kills a member of a neighbouring tribe. To prevent all-out war, tribal laws dictate that the offending tribe allow the offender to be speared from a distance by individuals of the tribe of the slain man. The offender is allowed to be accompanied by a companion, and in this instance he takes his younger brother, Yeeralparil. Whenever one of the two is hit, the spear-throwers will stop, and justice will have been served. Ridjimiraril is hit and mortally wounded but survives long enough to return to his camp, where he is tended to by his eldest wife. When he knows he is dying he performs a ritual dance and once dead his hair is cut and his body is painted to enable the ancestral spirits to guide him to the next world.

The elder brother's kidnapped second wife then finds her way back to the camp. She reveals that she had been kidnapped by a different tribe, much farther away and had taken this long to return. She mourns her lost husband, who had attacked the wrong tribe, though now she and the elder wife take his younger brother as their new husband. The younger brother, who was only interested in the youngest of the three wives, now has to care for all of them, and satisfying their many demands is clearly going to be much more than he wished.

Minygululu tells this story in the hope that Dayindi learns of the added responsibilities of a husband and elder statesman in the tribe, and in the end we see Dayindi withdrawing from his pursuit of Minygululu's young wife.

Cast and crew

The actors and actresses, mostly from Ramingining in East Arnhem Land, speak various dialects of the Yolngu Matha language family. Crusoe Kurddal is from Maningrida and speaks Kuninjku.

Cast

• Crusoe Kurddal – Ridjimiraril
• Jamie Gulpilil – Dayindi/Yeeralparil
• Richard Birrinbirrin – Birrinbirrin
• Peter Minygululu – Minygululu
• Frances Djulibing – Nowalingu
• David Gulpilil – The Storyteller
• Sonia Djarrabalminym – Banalandju
• Cassandra Malangarri Baker – Munandjarra
• Philip Gudthaykudthay – The Sorcerer
• Peter Djigirr – Canoeist/The Victim/Warrior
• Michael Dawu – Canoeist/The Stranger
• Bobby Bunungurr – Canoeist/Uncle
• Johnny Buniyira – Canoeist/Warrior
• Gil Birmingham – Canoeist/Warrior
• Steven Wilinydjanu Maliburr – Canoeist/Warrior

Locations

• Arafura Swamp, Northern Territory, Australia
• Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
• Ramingining, Northern Territory, Australia

Awards

Box office

Ten Canoes grossed A$3,511,649 at the box office in Australia.

Twelve Canoes

After Ten Canoes sparked worldwide interest in Yolngu culture, a spin-off educational project known as Twelve Canoes was born, in collaboration with the people at Ramingining. A website, videos and study guide were created, focussing on twelve key subjects. The film of the twelve segments was shown on SBS TV in Australia, and has been available online.

See also

In Spanish: Diez canoas para niños

• Cinema of Australia
• South Australian Film Corporation
• Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, a 2001 Canadian film entirely in Inuktitut by Inuit actors, also about an ancestral aboriginal legend also involving the jealousy of brothers.