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What is it like to be a smart 10-year-old aboriginal boy in a remote part of Australia where 100 percent of youth in detention centers are your people?

 

Synopsis

- UK + Ireland: tune in to watch the film along with us on Curzon Home Cinema
- Australia / New Zealand can watch on Vimeo 
Click HERE to watch the Q&A with filmmaker Maya Newell, William Tilmouth - Arrernte Advisor, and Jane Vadiveloo, founding CEO of Children’s Ground. Moderated by Elaine Pearson, Australia Director, Human Rights Watch.
 
Film description:
"I was born a little Aboriginal kid,” explains 10-year-old Dujuan. “That means I had a memory – a memory about being Aboriginal.” Born in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Australia, Dujuan has a strong connection to his culture, speaks three languages, and is regarded as a healer in his community. But within the colonised school system, his strength, gifts, and intellect go unnoticed, his culture ignored and deleted from school books, and he acts out, attracting attention from the police and child welfare system. At the time of filming, 100 percent of the youth in Alice Springs detention centres were Aboriginal. In this powerful portrait, made in collaboration with Dujuan's family, Maya Newell puts the beauty, resilience, and challenges of the Northern Territory’s Indigenous children in the spotlight.

“What I want is a normal life of just being me. And what I mean by me is: I want to be an Aborigine.”

-          Dujuan Turner, In My Blood It Runs

UK Advisory (12A)

*A note to any attending Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers that the film contains images and voices of deceased persons.

To learn more on this topic visit HRW.org
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Credits

Maya Newell

Director

Maya is an Australian filmmaker with a focus on social impact documentary. She has directed award-winning short documentaries, Two (AFI Docs, Slamdance, Winner AIDC emerging talent) and Growing Up Gayby (ABC TV) and her feature documentary Gayby Baby (2015). Gayby Baby was selected for GoodPitch2 Australia 2014, premiered at Hot Docs, screened at London BFI, Doc Leipzig, Doc NYC, is on Netflix US and reached No. 1 on iTunes doc charts during it’s UK release. In Australia, the film famously caused a national stir when it was banned by the Australian State Government and is acknowledged as significant in the fight for Marriage Equality and Adoption Equality in Australia. In My Blood It Runs was selected for Good Pitch Australia 2016, the Sundance Documentary Fund and Sundance Skywalker Music and Sound Design Labs and is due for release in 2020.