Yana Djamaji Ganji wins diversity award at the Far South Film Festival, 2024.
Co-Director/Co-Producer Clancy Walker accepting the Diversity Award for the film Yana Djakaga Ganji / Walk Good Fire. Image courtesy of the Far South Film Festival, 2024.
A documentary led by the Batemans Bay Land Council and the Walbunja Rangers, co-directed by Plumwood caretaker Clancy Walker, has won the Diversity Award at the Far South Film Festival, 2024, held at Merimbula New South Wales.
The documentary follows the work of the Walbunja Rangers in the aftermath of the 2019/2020 Black Summer Fires and the role of resurgent cultural burning in healing Country and people across Yuin Country, on the South Coast of New South Wales. Shot across the South Coast, this documentary includes discussion on the handback, and documents night surveys, on Plumwood Mountain.
Jimmy Parker, from the Bega District News, writes:
The Diversity Award, $500, and one year regional membership of Screenworks, went to Yana Djamaga Ganji / Walk Good Fire, directed and produced by Clancy Walker and Adam Nye, produced by Andrew White, Roslyn Carriage, and Les Simon.
"The film takes the viewer out on the front lines with the Walbunja Rangers as they work with traditional fire and traditional land management strategies to heal country after the Black Summer fires," Walker said.
"It was such a privilege to go to so many cultural burns, spend so much time talking to elders, I learnt so much more than I ever even hoped to put in the movie. Extremely grateful to be there and get that Indigenous perspective.
"We need firefighters and the RFS are rightfully celebrated, they do an incredible job, but in Walk Good Fire, it sort of positions the RFS as emergency responders rather than fire practitioners.
"And the Walbunja Rangers work with fire and use fire to get the country healthy, and their outcomes are very different from when RFS does a hazard reduction burn," he said, noting the film was a little controversial, but received well.
Yana Djamaga Ganji / Walk Good Fire is screening next at the WildScreen Festival in Bristol, UK, alongside a number of community screenings across the east coast of Australia.
Please contact Clancy Walker for press or screening enquiries: walkerclancy101@gmail.com