Film Synopsis: In My Blood It Runs

Dujuan is a 10-year-old Arrernte/Garrwa boy from Mparntwe (Alice Springs) in Australia. Thanks to his mother and grandmother’s guidance, he speaks three languages, is a child-healer and an accomplished hunter.

Though Dujuan is highly intelligent and sensitive, he is “failing” in school, where his wisdom and strengths are not valued. He seems disengaged and bored; his frustration takes a toll on his self esteem. He starts skipping school and staying out late – and faces increasing scrutiny from welfare officers and the police. As the age of criminal responsibility is just 10 in Australia, the threat of juvenile detention looms (100% of the inmates in Alice Springs’ juvenile detention centres are Aboriginal)… But as soon as Dujuan is “on country,” away from the city, he ponders his future and, somewhere in between, finds space to dream.

Filmed in direct collaboration with Dujuan and his family, this striking documentary illustrates their fight to decolonise the school system and develop a curriculum that enables Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands people to determine and lead their own education.

Content notes:
Contains depictions of racism, colonialism and state violence (incl. against young people).
Contains discussions of substance abuse, suicide ideation.

Screened as part of TOAFF20