Prof. Carolyn Strachan’s film: TWO LAWS

TWO LAWS. From the Borroloola Aboriginal Community with Carolyn Strachan and Alessandro Cavadini.


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A watershed in ethnographic cinema, this unique film was conceived by the Nomination for Best Documentary Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory of Australia to tell the story of their
struggle to live under TWO LAWS. The first law is their own 40,000 year-oldAboriginal law, and the second, the brutally imposed law of European settlement.

With sensual visuals and dream-like pacing, the film dramatically engages the Aboriginal people’s sense of time, their oral history traditions, their rules of kinship and their songlines to reveal their law and custom and to record their battle to reclaim traditional lands. They invite us to sit down on the ground with them and witness their plans for a film that becomes—before our eyes—a profound story of resistance. TWO LAWS presents an entirely different logic for documenting history and culture.