This year, the Sydney Film Festival premiered its anticipated event with a seemingly unusual choice for opening film. Rather than your typical arthouse drama - something with and a soundtrack - - the 2017 gala screened a local production, a documentary and an Indigenous film. A diverse hat-trick of cinema.
Warwick Thornton's (Samson & Delilah) newest cinematic masterpiece, We Don't Need A Map, instantly became added to culture guides as a ''. The tongue-and-cheek documentary explores an initial comment Thornton made in 2010, saying that symbol of the Southern Cross was being at risk of becoming "". Speaking to academics, Elders and personalities, Thornton uncovers what the constellation means in different Australian contexts through documentary storytelling.
Spinning a lively debate at the after party and on social media, We Don't Need A Map opens a dialogue about the complexity of an iconic symbol which has undoubtedly increased in profile over the last few years, but has almost always existed.
We Don't Need A Map is a part of the documentary series on SBS & NITV. It premiers on NITV on Sunday, 23 June at 8.30pm on NITV Ch. 34.
