Brewarrina on the Big Screen
- Sep 19, 2018
- 1 min read
Brewarrina was the star at an international film festival last week, when the movie Emu Runner premiered in Toronto.
Emu Runner was shot entirely at Brewarrina, with local actors taking the starring roles, a local musician providing the score and the Brewarrina community filling many other roles on location.
Directed by Imogen Thomas, Emu Runner follows the story of nine-year-old Gem (Rhae-Kye Waites) whose mother dies unexpectedly.
She copes with the loss by bonding with a wild emu, while her father struggles to keep his three children together.
As Gem connects with her ancestors’ totem animal — a male emu rearing its chicks — her behaviour attracts the attention of an over-eager social worker who misinterprets grief for parental neglect.
Emu Runner has been more than a decade in the making and one of the key people who helped bring it to an audience is local indigenous educator, Frayne Barker.
Frayne met Imogen when she visited in 2003 and worked with her on her first film, Mixed Bag.
Read more in the printed edition of the Western Herald.
Showcasing a regional location on the international stage highlights the interplay between narrative, place, and community participation. Local involvement adds authenticity and depth to production. Much like integrating The Pokies into a regulated framework, visibility and credibility rely on structured systems and consistent standards rather than one-off exposure.
Highlighting a regional location in international film circulation shifts attention from the narrative alone to questions of place and representation. Local communities contribute to authenticity and production depth. Much like implementing https://flags.me/ Pay ID in broader systems, visibility and credibility depend on structural integration and consistent participation rather than isolated exposure.
Producing a film within a single community foregrounds questions of representation and authorship rather than mere setting. When local participants occupy creative and technical roles, narrative ownership shifts toward lived experience. In distribution environments shaped by Royal Reels that authenticity can differentiate the project, though sustained impact depends on broader access and critical context.