Airdate: Maralinga Tjarutja

Documentary Maralinga Tjarutja which captures the endurance of South Australia’s Maralinga people, following British Nuclear Testing, screens this Sunday.

Produced by Blackfella Films, it screens ahead of the upcoming  ABC drama Operation Buffalo.

The Maralinga people have lived on their lands for over sixty thousand years. This deep relationship with their country was challenged by the arrival of a colonising force that lead to the institutionalisation of the Maralinga people in the Ooldea Mission in the 1920s. This attempt to dispossess was intensified as Maralinga land was used for the British Nuclear Test Program between 1953 and 1963. The Maralinga people never relinquished their connection to and responsibility for their country. They fought for the clean-up of the radioactive and other contamination, for compensation and for the handback in 2009 of the Maralinga Village and Test Sites. What has been achieved is a rebuilding of traditional communities into vibrant, creative cultural communities that will ensure Maralinga custodianship of their lands for the next sixty thousand years.

Maralinga Tjarutja is a Blackfella Films production for the ABC. Principal production investment from the ABC in association with Screen Australia. Financed with support from South Australian Film Corporation. Director Larissa Behrendt; Producer Darren Dale; Writer Larissa Behrendt.; Executive Producer Kelrick Martin.

7:40pm Sunday on ABC