Acknowledging Solid Screen Culture in 2022 : Solid Awards and Screening

2022 Solid Screen Award Winners

The 2022 Solid Screen Awards have gone to 5 Aboriginal women representing a variety of roles in different media platforms and communities from across Australia.

The annual Solid Awards honour those who have long standing and also emerging careers in the screen arts, to acknowledge those creatives who have contributed substantially to their respective industries over decades. The Solid Screen initiatives have been presented annually by Jenny Fraser since 2014 and are home grown in Australia, with a unique focus on Indigenous Women around the world. “A very rare opportunity to celebrate the current outstanding practice, and helping to grow screen culture locally while also putting the regions on the map internationally,” she said.

The 2022 Solid Photographer Award has gone to Gertrude Davis (QLD). She is of Gugu-Yimithirr and Kuku Yalanji heritage, was born in Mossman and grew up on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. Gertrude has studied photography and film making and also worked as a Documentary Photographer at many events around the country, and had her work published in the Koori Mail. The photography work of Ms Davis is held in collections including the State Archives, and the North Queensland Land Council. In 2015 she acted in the Short Film titled ‘On Stage’, which was filmed in Cairns.

A Solid Screen Leadership Award has gone to Narelda Jacobs (WA), a Whadjuk Noongar Media Presenter from Boorloo / Perth. Her career at Network 10 has spanned more than two decades, starting in the Perth newsroom in 2000 before heading to Sydney in January 2020 to co-host Studio 10 and continue presenting 10 News First Perth. Narelda is a regular at NITV and SBS, co-hosting Mardi Gras, The Point and the January 26 Sunrise Ceremony. Narelda has appeared on The Project, Q+A and stages across Australia introducing international leaders and humanitarian advocates. Narelda is passionate about promoting equality, diversity and inclusion and is on the board of The Walkley Foundation, Dame Changer and Welcome to Country. This award also acknowledges her advocacy on social media.

The 2022 SOLID Screen Festival Director Award has gone to Greta Morton Elangué, who is based in France, but born in Australia, her work is inter-disciplinary, focusing on curatorial, historical and filmic practices to explore Black diasporic and Indigenous expression. Greta grew up in a family where culture was given an important place. Her father promoted Aboriginal culture at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in the 1980s, and her uncle, Noel Tovey AM is a renowned Theatre Director. Her passion is promoting the cinema of Black Australia. Founded by Greta Morton Elangué in 2016, Festival du Cinéma Aborigène Australien is the only film festival dedicated to Indigenous Australian cinema based outside Australia. For Greta Morton Elangué, Indigenous cinema exposes the real face of a population and this face was invisible for a long time. “We’re looking under the veil, so to speak”, she said. “Cinema is very effective at breaking down stereotypes and like Aboriginal art, it helps the general public to be aware of culture, of country and the vitality of cultural expression. It’s the storytellers telling us all how it is.”

Lorraine Mafi-Williams (NSW) is acknowledged for her work posthumously with a 2022 SOLID Screen Trail Blazer Award. She was a film maker and her short film ‘Eelemarni: The Stoy of Leo and Leva’ won the Erwin Rado Award For Best Australian Film, at the Melbourne Film Festival in 1988. Lorraine was the daughter of Bandjalang man Rev. Bob Turnbull, an activist in the 1930s and 40s, and her family was from the Woodenbong area. She was born at the Purfleet Mission at Kempsey. Like many of her generation, Lorraine Mafi Williams was taken from her parents at a young age. During the 1970s and 80s she became part of a powerful activist group in Sydney. With her cousin Mum Shirl and her niece Isabel Coe she was instrumental in helping care for over 4,000 troubled children of many ethnic backgrounds. Lorraine helped found the Black Theatre in Newtown that started many people such as Eddie Mabo and Bryan Brown in acting and political careers. Mafi-Williams was also a Writer and Storyteller, and edited Spirit Song, the first anthology of Aboriginal poetry, published by Omnibus Books in 1993. Ms Mafi Williams undertook a great deal of Aboriginal Women’s Business. Lorraine Mafi-Williams died in 2001.

Arrernte and Anmatjerre woman, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks (NT) is also acknowledged for her work posthumously with a 2022 SOLID Screen Trail Blazer Award. She was born in 1937 at Utopia Station in Central Australia and remained on her Country until going to school in Alice Springs at the age of nine. In 1951, Rosalie was 14 and staying at St Mary’s Hostel in Alice Springs when the filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel recruited her to play the title role in their 1955 film Jedda, the first Australian colour movie. Her nickname was “Rosie”, but the Chauvels changed her name for the screen to Ngarla Kunoth, (against her own wishes). The film Jedda was momentous in Australian cinematic history and the groundbreaking film was played for audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in France 60 years later in 2015. This experience also inspired the play and TV play Burst of Summer. However, Jedda threw Rosalie and her co-star Robert Tudawali into an unprecedented limelight and, after completing her education, Rosalie withdrew to Melbourne within the Anglican Church. Rosalie became the first Aboriginal Anglican nun and she remained with the order for 10 years. Rosalie sought a release from her vows feeling called to work with her people. In 2008 she became president of the NT’s Barkly Shire. Appearing on the ABC’s Q&A program in 2014, she famously spoke out against Aboriginal assimilation. “My language [lives on] in spite of whiteness trying to penetrate into my brain by assimilationists,” she said. “I am alive. I am here and now and I speak my language. I practise my cultural essence of me. Don’t try and suppress me and don’t call me a problem. I am not the problem”. Dr Kunoth-Monks died in January 2022 and is remembered for her active social and political role advocating for Aboriginal people.

Now in its ninth year, the 2022 Solid Awards were affirmed with a Solid Screening that took place to mark Dia de los Muertos held at Roxy Gallery in Kyogle, on Bundjalung Country 30 October 2022. The event was ceremoniously presented in a multi-artform showcase with screen offerings from Mexico, Hawaii, Australia and including a Welcome to Country by local Gallibal Elder Aunty Marcia Brooks. Also known as Day of the Dead which is a celebration with its roots in Mexico, the intention was to honour the Spirit World. “We have had a lot of Sorry Business in our communities this year, so it’s timely that we nurture the gathering spirit and honoured them while the veil was thin between realms,” said Solid Screen Curator Jenny Fraser.

Aunty Marcia Brooks

Those present on the day also created a community art installation of clay pinch pots and flower offerings in memorium, and in kinship to the natural world. There were Pina Colada bushfood mocktails and also prizes for best-dressed for a Mexico-style theme and shown off in the skull photo-booth portrait sessions.

Community Flower Art Installation at Roxy Gallery, Kyogle

A local screening highlight, Eelemarni : the story of Leo and Leva was written and directed by Lorraine Mafi-Williams (RIP) in 1988, with Elder Millie Boyd (RIP) retelling traditional Bundjalung stories, and filmed at a number of sacred sites including the surrounds of Woodenbong and Kyogle. Hawaii was represented in the room at Kyogle by Phoenix Maimiti Valentine with a screening of Pulelehua, her handmade animation about the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly, and the leading conservation aloha example of Native Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani. A short film titled Semilla (the Seed) featuring Olga Tamay and directed by José Martín Perruccio, was presented in partnership with Kayche Festival based in the Yucatan Region of Mexico, also helping to mark their 10th anniversary there. Semilla is about a Mayan community affected by a transnational company that distributes highly toxic agrochemicals and manipulates families to carry out modern practices in the milpa. Jacinto an 11 year old child victim of the use of agrochemicals tries to return his family to the traditions his grandparents used to make the milpa.