GURRUMUL
by Paul Damien Williams
SYNOPSIS
Celebrated by audiences at home and abroad, Indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was one of the most important and acclaimed voices to ever come out of Australia. Blind from birth, he found purpose and meaning through songs and music inspired by his community and country on Elcho Island in far North East Arnhem Land. Living a traditional Yolngu life, his breakthrough album ‘Gurrumul’ brought him to a crossroads as audiences and artists around the world began to embrace his music.
DETAILS
96 mins
2017
Australia
English, Yolngu Matha
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TRAILER
CREDITS
Written and Directed by Paul Damien Williams
Produced by Shannon Swan
Co-producers: Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Mark T. Grose, Michael Hohnen
Directors of Photography: Dan Maxwell, Katie Milwright (ACS), Matt Toll, Gavin Head
Editor: Shannon Swan, Ken Sallows (ASE)
Score by Michael Hohnen, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Erkki Veltheim
Sound Designer: Pip Atherstone-Reid
BIOGRAPHY
DIRECTOR - PAUL DAMIEN WILLIAMS
Paul Williams completed a graduate diploma in Documentary Filmmaking from the Victorian College of Arts in 1999. Paul has been working in the film industry since 1997, firstly as a freelance film and video editor and then as a producer and director of his own company, Sutton Grange Films. As an editor Paul was nominated for an Australian Film Institute award for Best Feature Documentary Film Editing for WORDS FROM THE CITY.
Since 2012 Paul has been based in Darwin, Northern Territory where he has been working in partnership with Skinnyfish Music. Through this relationship Paul has formed great bonds with the people of North East Arnhem Land. Paul developed and produced two 15-20 minute films, WARDBAKKARRA and WURRAY through the NITV/Screen Australia initiative Songlines on Screen. These films aset in remote Arnhem Land and involving Indigenous Dreamtime stories, premiered at the Sydney International Film Festival.
Paul is also in the final stages of postproduction of the feature-length documentary film 99 NOT OUT a film that started off as simply following a man from his 99th to 100th birthdays, but became a deeply affecting existential study of the passing of time.
SELECT FESTIVALS
BERLINALE 2018〡PERTH FESTIVAL 2018〡MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018〡NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2018〡MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY 2018
PRESS
"Stirring and soulful ode to Australia's most important voice... must-see documentary... For Gurrumul fans, the film is obviously a must-see. For those unfamiliar, or vaguely familiar with his work, it's an even greater treat: they will be entertained, enthralled, perhaps in some small way changed."
- The Guardian
"Director Paul Damien Williams’ poignant film captures the singular qualities — both as an artist and a man — of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu... Approaching its reclusive subject with unerring respect, the elegantly composed doc mirrors the gentle power and ethereal hush of Gurrumul’s singing."
- The Hollywood Reporter
"Australia's most important voice gets a documentary portrait that’s goosebump material... a shimmering tribute to an amazing singer, a quiet genius who was never equipped for stardom but whose small recorded output we are enormously lucky to retain."
- TimeOut