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Warwick Thornton

Warwick Thornton

Directing

Biography

Warwick Thornton (born 23 July, 1970; Alice Springs) is an Australian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country. Thornton is a Kaytetye man born and raised in Alice Springs. His mother Freda Glynn co-founded and was the first director of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and was the director of Imparja Television for its first 10 years. At 13, Thornton was sent to school in Australia's only monastic town, New Norcia, Western Australia, although he later declared he became angry with Christianity and did not consider himself religious. He graduated in cinematography from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

Known For

First Australians

First Australians is an Australian historical documentary series produced by Blackfella Films over the course of six years, and first aired in October 2008. The documentary is part of a greater project that further consists of a hard-cover book, a community outreach program and a substantial website featuring over 200 mini-documentaries. The series chronicles the history of contemporary Australia, from the perspective of its first people, or Aborigines. The series is essentially a synthesis of well documented historical information. It relies heavily on archival documents and interpretations from historians and members of both the Indigenous and European community and leaders. The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the arrival of the First Fleet and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. The series comprises seven episodes in which it explores what unfolded when the oldest living culture in the world was confronted by the British Empire. It explores the lives of particular individuals and uses their stories as a vehicle to explain the larger situations of the time. It explains violent aspects of European settlement of Australia, such as killings, battles, wars, as well as acts of friendship and decency between the early European settlers and Indigenous Australians. Indigenous Australian history has until recently been clouded by the "great Australian silence" where ignorance of the real history of Australia can be seen as a way for non-Indigenous to hide shame for their own history. In this respect it has been controversial in that many of these stories have not been portrayed on Australian television before and the Indigenous Australian perspective of European settlement is confrontational for many.

First Australians

2008Series
Words with Gods
5.7

The first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series. Comprised of several short films by some of the world's most exciting directors, Words with Gods follows the theme of religion - specifically as it relates to an individual's relationship with his/her god or gods...or the lack thereof. In Words with Gods, each director recounts a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship; including early Aboriginal Spirituality, Umbanda, Buddhism, the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Atheism. An animated sequence by Mexican animator Maribel Martinez is woven through each of the film segments, with each segment narratively connected as a feature-length film.

Words with Gods

2014Movie