Airdate: Putuparri & the Rainmakers

NITV screens the documentary Putuparri & the Rainmakers which premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival last year and has since been a nominee for best picture at the Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival.

Set against the backdrop of Australia’s tangled colonial and Indigenous history, the film 10 years in the making is the stunning story of Aboriginal culture, life and law told through Tom ‘Putuparri’ Lawford.

Director Nicole Ma spent more than a decade documenting Putuparri’s journey, travelling with him and his family on numerous occasions to Kurtal, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. Kurtal is a site of great spiritual significance to Putuparri’s family where they have ritually made rain for many thousands of years. The family have spent nearly two decades fighting for their native title claim over the area. The film captures the long fight for ownership of traditional lands, it is an emotional and breathtaking story of love, hope and the survival of Aboriginal law and culture against all odds.

Tom’s grandparents, Nyilpirr Ngalyaku Spider Snell and Jukuja Dolly Snell, the traditional owners of Kurtal are in the documentary and seen painting the iconic Ngurrara Canvas (traditional map) taken to Canberra as part of their land claim case. The iconic painting saw 40 artists and senior traditional owners of the Great Sandy Desert of northern Western Australia take part in creating their land map. 

Sunday 13 March 2016, 9:30pm on NITV.