Sudesha + My Survival as an Aboriginal

Programme

• 

  Sudesha (Yugantar Film Collective, IN 1983, 30')

  Portrait of Sudesha Devi, a village activist and member of the Chipko movement for forest preservation in the foothills of the Himalaya. The local inhabitants’ livelihoods are to a great extent dependent on the forest that threatens to be destroyed by powerful logging interests. Sudesha is even arrested for protesting. The protests largely consisted of women even though they received no support to also become the official leaders of the Chipko movement. A great deal of attention is also paid to the women’s daily routines.
  
  Sudesha is part of the film series 'As women see it. How do women see their lives and their future?', a project featuring seven documentaries from India, Senegal, Peru, Nicaragua, Egypt, Italy and Germany.

• 

  My Survival as an Aboriginal (Essie Coffey, AU 1979, 53')

  Essie Coffey was a Murawarri activist and filmmaker who taught her community about the importance of culture and tradition. The documentary shows Essie teaching Aboriginal children how to track, use traditional weapons and survive in the bush. She says: “When you go back to school tomorrow, you’ll be brainwashed again and they will teach you the European way. But never forget that this land you are standing on now is yours.”
  
  Her documentary also reveals how Aboriginals are marginalised in all aspects of their lives from school to society as a whole. Enraged she shows the viewer how the living conditions of her people are scarred by poverty, illness, unemployment, alcoholism, racial suppression and dislocation. Her film won countless prizes, Coffey herself received the Order of Australia.