Ten Canoes

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Ten Canoes
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Rolf de Heer
Narrated by	David Gulpilil
Starring	Jamie Gulpilil
Cinematography	Ian Jones
Editing by	Tania Nehme
Distributed by	Palace Films
Release date(s)	29 June 2006
Running time	92 mins
Country	Australia
Language	Yolngu Matha/English
Budget	AUD $2,200,000
Official website
IMDb profile

Ten Canoes is a 2006 film starring Crusoe Kurddal from Maningrida who speaks the Gunwinggu language, along with actors and actresses from Ramingining who speak various dialects of the Yolngu language family. It is the first full-length feature film made entirely in Indigenous Australian languages. The title of the film arose from discussions between Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil about a photograph of ten canoeists poling across the Arafura Swamp, taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson in 1936. The script includes tribal warfare, sorcery and payback to create a realistic interpretation of the period and a storyline that appeals to western audiences.

The film is set in a time before western contact, and tells the story of a young man who covets one of his older brother's wives. Or rather, it tells the story of a warrior Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil), who hunts goose eggs while being told another story about another young man who, like Dayindi, coveted his elder brother's wife. The sequences featuring Dayindi, set shortly before contact with white people, are in black and white, while shots set in the present and in the distant past are in colour. The film is narrated in English by David Gulpilil; all protagonists speak in indigenous languages, with English subtitles.

The movie is directed by Rolf de Heer and won a special jury prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. de Heer rejected claims he is a white director making an indigenous story: "They're telling the story, largely, and I'm the mechanism by which they can." ^[1]. Ten Canoes was screened at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2006 and was released nationally on 29 June 2006.

In October 2006 Ten Canoes was chosen as Australia's official entry into the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2007 Academy Awards to be held in February. If nominated it would be the first Australian film ever nominated. The only other Australian film ever in the running was 2001's La Spagnola.

Ten Canoes was nominated for seven Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards, of which it won six. The movie won the awards for Best Picture (Julie Ryan, Rolf de Heer producers), Best Director (Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr), Best Screenplay - Original (Rolf de Heer), Best Cinematography (Ian Jones), Best Editing (Tania Nehme) and Best Sound (James Currie, Tom Heuzenroeder, Michael Bakaloff and Rory McGregor). It was also nominated for Best Production Design (Beverly Freeman)

In November the movie won three awards at the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards including the prestigious Best Film prize as well as Best Editing (Tania Nehme) and Best Cinematography (Ian Jones). The latter of which tied with David Williamson's work on Jindabyne. The film was also nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The original making-of documentary (that aired on Australian network SBS) The Balanda and the Bark Canoes, which detailed de Heer's experiences making the film, won Best Australian Short Documentary for de Heer, Tania Nehme and Molly Reynolds.

At the end of 2006 the film stands as one of the highest grossing Australian films of the year. By October it had made just over $3,000,000 from a budget of $2,200,000.