By Parker McKenzie
The Memo Cinema in Healesville is holding a free screening of Australian documentary The Lake of Scars on Saturday 27 August at 4pm.
The feature documentary, produced with the support of The Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council, Documentary Australia Foundation, Eucalypt Australia and the Dja Dja Wurrung Corporation, tells the story of “allyship, environmentalism and cultural rebirth; a picture of what reconciliation between Aboriginal and European Australians might look like” on Dja Dja Wurrung country.
The Lake of Scars’ editor Nicola Blackmore said the film is “a couple of bromances spun together with environmentalism and cultural reconciliation.”
“The characters in it are drawn together because they want to save a lot of the Aboriginal heritage in the area, but it is really the story of the many relationships around those topics and how they approach it,” she said.
“It’s a really amazing chance to see a film that’s been doing festivals all over Australia, but you can see it for free and Healesville.”
Directed by Bill Code and with the story told by Uncle Jack Charles, it follows Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people working against the clock to preserve and promote what they can of Lake Boort and its surrounds amidst the backdrop of treaty talks and the fight for water rights. The documentary, which runs for one hour and 34 minutes and was first released earlier in 2022, is a call to action for those who care about the values of Australia’s untold history, how cultures interconnect and building a blueprint for reconciliation on a local level.
Ms Blackmore, who is a specialist documentary and current affairs editor based in Emerald, said the film adds to the conversation around recollection and the current push for an Indigenous Voice in parliament.
“The film shows that it’s not as easy as just wanting to make it happen because the two main people in the film both want the same thing, they’re striving towards the same thing, they’ve got the same goals and aims but they are coming from two very different places,” she said.
“One of them is a much older white farmer and the other one is a young guy, they want exactly the same things but are coming from completely different places together to do it, which is what you want to see happening to a greater extent within Australian culture.”
The Memo Cinema is located at Healesville Memorial Hall, 237 Maroondah Highway, Healesville. Tickets for the free screening can be booked at yarraranges.sales.ticketsearch.com/sales/salesevent/77424
