It has been 30 years since Patsy Achoo has seen her Island home. Born on Sunday Island (Iwany) in 1922 Patsy has recently been drawn by a strong desire to go home and say goodbye to the Island that was home to many Bardi and Jawi people like her.
Sitting off the community of One Arm Point, in the Dampierland Pennisula of the North West Kimberly, Sunday Island was set up by missionaries to turn the people to a life of God.
The memories of her childhood are very strong but will the reality of going home be the same? Patsy relives poignant moments as she walks over places filled with sounds and smells of a time long gone.
26 Minute documentary
Nganampa Anwernekenhe Series 14
Director Mitch Torres
Director’s statement
I have a strong affiliation with Patsy Achoo – over the past 3-4 years I have seen her turn her considerable storytelling talents and cultural knowledge to many projects: Corrugation Road – Jimmy Chi’s musical, teaching Bard language in the Primary school here in Broome, and being spokesperson for women’s law and culture here in the West Kimberley. I consider her an elder friend as well as an in – law. In this portrait of Patsy I wanted to show her as she travelled back to her home and the many inner aspects that the journey would reveal for and how memories are just memories after all – especially when faced with the reality of how time changes a person’s memory of a place.
Memories of Iwany is a journey for Patsy to touch base with her inner past and reconcile it with the reality of today and the ghost town-like Island that was once her thriving, living home.
Aunty Patsy does not talk a whole deal but you feel her connectedness and her feelings of sadness to this beautiful place surrounded by the most amazing blue waters of the King Sound.
The journey for Aunty Patsy led us full circle to the discovery that even though memories change so do traditions change and adapt. I wanted to somehow show that even though her memories were very different to what is left today of her home the traditions continue I did this by filming the turtle catch. It summed up her feeling of happiness that some things do continue and never really change.
Awards and Screenings
2004 Screened at Austrian ‘Festival der Nationen – Kurzfilme – Die Besten aus aller Welt’
2004 Imaginative Film Festival – Vancouver
2004 IMPARJA TV
2004 Maori TV
