Interview: Tracey Rigney

Tracey Rigney.

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In part two of Cinema Australia’s We Are Still Here interview series, we chat with Tracey Rigby – a passionate filmmakers who’s short film, Rebel Art, is one of eight contributions to the new anthology film.

Tracey Rigney is a Wotjobaluk and Ngarrindjeri woman. She is a storyteller: a published playwright and filmmaker. Her directing credits include Steven Oliver’s web series, A Chance Affair, short films Man Real, which was selected for the Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Abalone, which won Best Short Drama at ImagiNATIVE 2013. More recently her short film Elders, directed by Tony Briggs, premiered at Berlin International Film Festival in 2020.

We Are Still Here is a joint initiative between Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department and the New Zealand Film Commission. It was an opportunity for Indigenous filmmakers to tell anthology stories about colonisation of native peoples throughout the Pacific and to respond to the 250th anniversary ofJames Cook’s arrival to both countries. We Are Still Here came from the meeting and collaboration of the eight filmmaking teams, the producers, film agencies and supporters, who all share experiences, aspirations and stories.

We Are Still Here is screening at MIFF from Friday, 5 August. More MIFF screening details here. We Are Still Here is screening at CinefestOZ from Thursday, 25 August. More CinefestOZ screening dates here

“I knew I wanted to do something about loss and grief, because that’s such a central theme in my life personally, but also in the history of our country and that loss and grief that we’re still feeling today in terms of invasion.”

Interview by Matthew Eeles

Where does your passion for storytelling come from?
It all started with my grandfather. But at the time I wasn’t aware of it. You know when you’re a kid and you just love your grandparents and you just wanna hang out with them because they’re really cool, and they’re old, and you love how they’re old. [Laughs]. When I was a kid I used to just sit and listen to my grandfather. He just loved to tell stories. It was like turning on a tap of water. Stories would just pour out of him. He’d make his own boomerangs, so we’d go out bush with him and he’d look for a piece of wood that had the potential to be made into like a number of boomerangs. We’d come back in from out bush and he’d start making the boomerangs. And as he’s doing that process he would tell stories about his life, about our culture, about him being in World War II. Anything and everything. And then he’d get us kids to paint his boomerang. So my brothers and I would sit at his feet and he’d be telling stories. We’d be there decorating his boomerangs. God knows with what because I was terrible at it. I’m a terrible visual artist, but I’m sure he appreciated the effort. [Laughs].

That’s a beautiful story. Were you envisioning his stories as films and plays while he was telling them?
I guess so. I guess that’s when I started to learn from him how to use my imagination in a visual sense. He never read me a book. I love books now, but he never read books to us kids. It was him carrying on that tradition of oral storytelling. He would leave it up to our imaginations to picture just exactly what he would be talking about. At the time I didn’t realise it, but I was falling in love with stories, but never thought it of it as a potential career. [Laughs]. Growing up art was considered a hobby, and not a job. I went to uni and I wanted to travel the world. So I was looking at doing something that looked at tourism or communications or business. Then I met a cousin at of mine who was doing his Masters in the history of black theatre and that really piqued my interest. I loved to sit down with him and just pick his brains and I was fascinated by the people who he was interviewing for that like Uncle Jack Charles and all these other people like Gary Foley and all these other really interesting characters. It was then that I realised I love the arts. I love the creative arts. I kept asking myself, “how do I do it?” Melbourne University teed up an interview with the Dean of the creative arts faculty. And I went there, had the interview and she accepted me. [Laughs]. I’ve never looked back since.

Does your grandfather stay with you today when you’re creating and telling your own stories?
Absolutely. He’s so just entrenched in everything I do. He’s the reason I wrote the short film, Elders, that Tony Briggs directed. It was to honour him. I want to do more of that. I want to continue to find ways that I can honour him and what he’s done for me and what he continues to do for me. So, yeah, absolutely. I feel like he’s still very much present even though he’s not physically here, just spiritually. I feel like he is definitely around and definitely supporting me and my career and my love of storytelling that I got from him.

You mentioned your cousin who studied Black Theatre. Have you seen the documentary Ablaze?
[Laughs] I haven’t. I haven’t. And I really want to because that’s about Bill Onus, by Tiriki Onus. Yes, I really, really, really wanna see it.

In 2012 you worked as a director’s attachment on The Sapphires. Tell us about that experience.
I absolutely adore that story and I really adore, Wayne Blair, the director. I feel like what Wayne did for me was amazing. Rather than just sitting down and shadowing him, just picking his brains and stuff in between takes he gifted me with an opportunity that on the one hand freaked me out and on the other hand, I’m eternally grateful for. What he did was one morning he came up to me during breakfast and he goes, “So, tomorrow I need a couple of shots of girls running through a canola field. Closeups of them jumping over a barbed wire fence. Could you go away with a breakaway crew and do that?” And I was like, “Yeah sure. Absolutely, mate. No worries.”
It wasn’t gonna happen until the next day. So all that day I’m freaking out wondering what I’m gonna do. I couldn’t sleep that night. I was just like, “Why did I say yes? You’re an idiot?” [Laughs]. You know that doubting voice in your head? Anyway, I woke up the next morning. I was so tired, but I was super excited because I got to go with a B Unit and we went and we had so much fun just shooting these grabs of the girls going through the canola fields along these barbed wire fences. They both ended up in the final cut which was incredible. [Laughs].

Wow. What a fantastic opportunity.
Absolutely. I’m so grateful for that attachment because I got to see something and be part of a real filmmaking process. I became a part of the film and of that moment. It was awesome.

I’ve been watching the second season of Aftertaste with Wayne. He’s so funny in it. I think he’s at his best as an actor when he gets to be funny.
I saw a scene of him dancing with a young boy. [Laughs]. Doing ballroom dancing? [Laughs]. I saw that Instagram because I follow ABC and I was in tears. I was like, I’ve gotta see that. I love Wayne. That’s hilarious. Oh my God. [Laughs].

How did you become involved with We Are Still Here?
It was an initiative through the Indigenous Department at Screen Australia and Screen New Zealand. They put like a call out for indigenous filmmakers to submit an idea, or a script in response to the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival to both countries. I actually offered up a couple of ideas and I didn’t really think anymore about it because it was so competitive. There’s a lot of people, a lot of amazing storytellers and lots of really good ideas. I couldn’t believe I actually got contacted to be a part of it. It started off with a series of workshops. We kicked off at Kangaroo Valley with the New Zealand filmmakers who come over, because there’s four First Nations filmmakers from Australia and four from New Zealand. We got in a room and we just started talking about our stories and just talking about our histories and our culture got to know each other as people.
From there we then started to get a feel for some stories. Some were more evolved than others and I was probably the one who didn’t have it together and I felt as though I wasn’t as evolved in comparison to the others. I offered up two ideas and then I tried to merge them. It was an amazing experience, but probably the most challenging experience for me in terms of coming up with a story is that it was a real different way of creating, because I’d never really created a chapter of anthology film before. I knew that I wanted to do something about Captain Cook’s cottage because I know that a lot of people don’t even know that that exists. It’s got prime real estate in Melbourne. I knew it was something to do with that.

I didn’t know it existed until I watched your chapter, Rebel Art.
There you go. I knew I wanted to do something about loss and grief because that’s such a central themes in my life personally, but also in the history of our country and that loss and grief that we’re still feeling today in terms of invasion. I knew I wanted that, and I knew I wanted to focus on women. I’m so sick of all these films about men or boys so I felt I needed to do something for the sister girl. So I knew I wanted to have strong female characters in my story. So that was the ingredients I was going off essentially. It didn’t all really kind of click for me until we had Briar Grace-Smith come on board to help with the script editing. She is incredible. She’s a Maori woman from New Zealand. She wrote, starred in and directed the New Zealand film Cousins. She’s just a gem of a woman with an incredible mind. I think for me, she really helped get me over the line in terms of my story and from that the directing was all great. It was all great.

Leonie Whyman in Rebel Art.

You mentioned that you wanted to explore grief and loss, and that you wanted to make women the main theme of the film. But did you always want to incorporate art into the film? It’s a huge part of it.
Yeas. So I live on a street in my hometown, Dimboola, as in the play by Jack Hibberd. [Laughs]. The street that I live on in Dimboola is named after a man who participated in the massacres of my mother’s people, so I just wanted to do something about defacing stuff like that and how these men are celebrated with monuments and street signs. I know that’s really cliche, and even I’ve seen that before so I wanted to express that through graffiti. It progressed from wanting to deface monuments. I wanted to make political statements through art. Whether it’s our words, whether it’s visual arts, you can make a powerful statement. I knew my character’s art was going to be an outlet for her grief and a way for her to get her strength back in the throes of grief. We never fully heal, but we kind of learn to live and cope with grief, or the loss of the loved one, and art is a great way of expressing grief.

Did you work with any particular artists for the artwork in the film?
Yes. We really, really, really tried to get some amazing First Nations artists like Libby Harward. I really wanted her. She was the whole package in terms of what I wanted from an artist like that. She’s a woman. She’s First Nations. She does these amazing political, but beautiful and profound pieces of work. But, you know, people are busy because they’re so in demand and they’re amazing. We ended up with Matthew Adnate. He is incredible. Like, wow! He only came onto our radar because he’s done some amazing murals locally. Honestly I was kind of conflicted because I did wanna support a First Nations artist. That was my priority. But then the production was happening and I just had to go with Matthew Adnate. I’m really, really happy we we’re able to collaborate with Matthew in the end because his work is amazing. But like I said, I wanted to support a sister girl. [Laughs].

Did you cast the film yourself? You’ve got some incredible actors here.
Yes, I did. And you know what? I told Meyne Wyatt, “You were just there in my head while I was writing this.” [Laughs]. I wanted Tasia Zalar because I love her. She’s amazing. But then Leonie Whyman, oh my God. I was like, “One door closes and another opens.” Leonie just smashed it out of the park. She’s amazing. And then there’s Lisa Flanagan. I just love her. Who doesn’t? So I was so glad Lisa was able to come on board and be a part of it too. So yeah, I was definitely involved with the casting and I just love my cast. I always love my cast.

Actually Lisa Flanigan has had a busy year with Mystery Road: Origin and Aftertaste. Wayne Blair and Lisa play brother and sister in Aftertaste and they so funny together.
Wow! I’ve definitely gotta see Aftertaste now, Matthew.

What does an actor as experienced as Lisa bring to a production like this?
Such has such an incredible energy. She’s so professional. I love seeing that she can help maintain a really lovely vibe on set. There were times where setting up in between takes so long and she would sing and dance, or do something really crazy. I love that. [Laughs]. She would crack Leonie up and just have this really relaxed vibe. Like vibe. She is kind of like a mother hen as well. I just loved how she just had that kind of energy on set. I loved everything about the shoot. It was great.

What’s your opinion on the Australia Day/Invasion Day debate? What do you think needs to be changed so it’s an equal celebration for all Australians?
It depends what mood I’m in. There are days where I’m like, “You know what? We could change it and have something to celebrate with everyone.” And then there are days where I’m like, “You know what? Just get rid of it. Just get rid of it all together. It’s just too divisive.” Why can’t we find something completely different and new and something that celebrates who we are today as a nation. It’s just so complex. I can’t really answer that in a straight way. I think it’s just too divisive just having that date, but then, you know, what do you do? How can we move forward? There’s nothing about that date that we can celebrate. Our land was invaded. Out ancestors were massacred. We’re not benefiting from any of that today. We’re still at the bottom of the ladder in terms of survival and health and education and all of that. It’s not a simple question, and it’s not a simple answer.

It certainly isn’t. I did want to give you the opportunity to have your say here. I think your answer is to the point.
Thank you.

I’ve been reading about your theatre work. What are you up to next?
I’m actually working on a play at the moment for little children. I have a little girl and I’ve just discovered that I love writing for little people. [Laughs]. I love creating art for little people. I’m really excited about writing this kind of play with Blackhole Theatre. It involves puppetry. I’m really kind of excited about that.

That’s fantastic to hear. How exciting. I’ve got young children myself and I’m always elated to see how they respond to live theatre. They love it. You’d think in this day and age that live theatre, especially for young people, would almost be a dying art. But it’s thriving because young people really respond to it.
You’re so right. Their reactions are priceless. I had my daughter come in on some of the creative developments and she was so stoked to be involved. My girl was in hysterics at the puppets. She just loved them. Even though they’re people and she could clearly see that the people were manoeuvring and manipulating these puppets, but she loved it. It’s just magic. I feel like live theatre and performance is magic. It’s a different kind of magic to film. I’ve discovered that I really, really love it and I want to tell more stories for little people.