Discussions with UTS Film-makers - Araatika Rise Up!

At the 2021 Sydney Film Festival - Learn how the talented UTS Film-makers make their films in this special Event.

This years festival promises some of the most thought-provoking, inspiring and exciting work from within the tenacious and talented pool of UTS colleagues, friends and alumni.  

Learn about the UTS Animal Logic Academy, UTS’s education and research studio focusing on creative practice and digital technologies and how they are delivering their current and future projects through the use of interactive and immersive media and the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research who are producing and developing some of Australia’s highly skilled Indigenous filmmakers.

  Araatika: Rise Up

Group of indigenous rugby team

For Indigenous Australian rugby league players, a pre-game ‘unity dance’ is an important step towards celebrating their cultures and combating entrenched racism.

Writer /Director, Distinguished Professor, Larissa Behrendt (Under Skin in Blood, MIFF 2015; Clan, MIFF 2014) and Director at the Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Learning and Research at UTS, discusses the making of her extraordinary film, ‘Araatika: Rise Up’ after it's screening at the event.

The film follows former National Rugby League (NRL) star Dean Widders who is a man on a mission. After fellow Indigenous players Preston Campbell, Timana Tahu and George Rose devised their own pre-game performance to match the haka of their Māori counterparts, Widders begins a journey to bring this dance – and First Nations pride more broadly – to the game.

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Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.