In 2014 extensive conversations occurred between the Western Sydney research team, Mark Inkamala, community researcher, Adam Macfie, anthropologist, Strehlow Research Centre and Ntaria teachers around plans for a collaborative film project provisionally titled ‘Aranda Heroes’. The intention was to motivate young men and senior girls from the Ntaria School to nominate community champions. With the use of genealogical materials based at the Strehlow Research Centre, both School groups worked onsite in the SRC on both photographs and family trees. Guided by Aranda elders, Mark Inkamala and Mavis and Kim Malbunka, the students were able to identify themselves and their relations, identify their skin names and understand their importance, and assist with some of the stages of the development of the film (storyboarding, interview questions and other preproduction work).

A second iteration of exposure to photographs and community history took place at the historical precinct in Hermannsburg. Here we placed students in specific historical buildings such as the old School and developed interactions where the students could make the connections back to the information found in the archive.

In a third iteration we travelled with the students to the outstation, Ipolera. With the assistance of Mavis and Kim Malbunka and Mark Inkamala, the students were taken on the Tjilpa Dreaming Track and with the guidance of the Elders and Traditional Owners, the students were given further information about the country they stood on and for some who were affiliated to the country, what the connection was between “country” and the family tree information and other cultural information they were provided with earlier in the week.

The film was shot over a period of five days with the assistance of some of these young men and women and the Elders who guided the young people in their work on the film. It was edited in collaboration with students, teachers and wider community members. Shaun Angeles, a Northern Aranda man, edited the film under supervision by members of the research team.