We Belong To The Land
We Belong To The Land is a short documentary by Jacob Collins that encourages the audience to reflect on their connection to land and ongoing relationship with nature. Set on kunanyi (Mt Wellington), in nipaluna (Hobart) the film explores key community members, including Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, recollections of the landscape.
This short was shown as part of the touring short film festival, Flickerfest. Acceptance to this festival qualifies and recognises each short for the Academy Awards and British Academy Film Awards. The high calibre of films shown as part of the festival comes as no surprise.
Production worked alongside Respect the Mountain, a community group whose focus is to protect the natural and cultural landscape of kunanyi. Spanning shots show members of Respect the Mountain in their iconic burnt orange cloaks looking over nipaluna from the slopes of kunanyi. With the feature of palawa kani language from Jamie graham-Blair, we get an insight into the importance of the mountain to Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples. Community members Kinny Langford, Danny Carney, Abby Aquila, Emily Sheppard and Sonia Caron also shared their stories and connections to the mountain.
These key details, the importance of relationships to the mountain, and the underlying power of the film, could be easily missed by the average viewer without connection to kunanyi and its community.
This short was shot on both digital and Super 8 film (Kodak vision 3 200T). The differentiation between the two felt like a reflection between the aspects of the mountain and our connection to the natural world. The audience gets the picturesque, clear and clean shots of the mountain that could represent the commercialised or modernised view of natural and cultural landscapes. These are interjected with the grit of the super 8 film which gives a sense of intimacy and honesty. A truer reflection of getting back to nature.
The sound production throughout the film was simply superb. The soundtrack was produced by Jacob Collins and Jack Mclaine with Emily Sheppard, Yyan Ng, Kinny Langford and Jaxon stickler. The continued use of the sounds of nature with almost meditative breath work and meaningful silence had the audience breathing in sync.
