Namarali

NAMARALI is a 50min documentary charting artist Donny (Yorna) Woolagoodja’s quest to rekindle deep connections with his traditional ancestral culture. Yorna’s spiritual beliefs revolve around the wandjina – creator beings whose images adorn the caves and rock ledges throughout the Kimberley in Western Australia. Refreshed with new ochre each year by his ancestors the wandjinas are now fading away with the absence of Yorna’s people. But the decision to allow one of Yorna’s designs to appear at the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony changes this dynamic. Yorna is compelled to visit the big-boss wandjina NAMARALI and repaint his once imposing 4m ochre cave image. On a distant, inaccessible section of the West Kimberley coast, the film is witness to the radical action of a man and his community determined to bring their deity ‘back to life’.

NAMARALI was created over 20 years by Tim Mummery and senior knowledge keeper Yorna Woolagoodja (2021 Red Ochre lifetime achievement award).