Aboriginal Rules

Liam Campbell | Australia 2007 | 55 min

Aboriginal Rules offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the grassroots Aboriginal football experience that you may have heard about, but never seen before.

Aboriginal Rules follows a year in the life of the Yuendumu Magpies Football Team as they battle it out in the red dirt of the Central Australian Outback. Yuendumu is about 300km north-west from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

The dust, hard knocks and chaos of a bush footy game are all part of the complicated inter-tribal rivalry that is played out when any two teams meet. If you were in Melbourne you'd see a counsellor in a room. In Yuendumu you go hunting and then play a good match of footy.

Aboriginal Rules is an invitation to discover what it means to be a young Warlpiri Warrior fighting for a place in the team, and what it means for the coach to keep the team together, to get players attend training and ultimately to achieve their goal of winning.

Football is the new dreaming that holds the balance in young men's lives.

Aboriginal Rules was made primarily for Aboriginal people by Aboriginal people in their own voice and on their own terms.

Football is just like a tjukurrpa [Dreaming]. You're owning that dreaming.—Aboriginal elder in Aboriginal Rules

Cast	Yuendumu Magpies football team Sherman Spencer Carson Brown Sebastian Watson Adrian 'Simba' Nelson (coach)
Release dates	not available
Video/DVD Release Date	20 October 2007
Awards	not available
Rating	PG
Language level	not available
Distributor	Warlpiri Media (You support an Indigenous business with your purchase.)
Soundtrack	Big Bear aka Thomas Saylor, available as separate Aboriginal Rules Soundtrack CD
Genre	Documentary
Notes	Website: www.aboriginalrules.com.au The same producers created the comedy Bush Mechanics. DVD extra: Japu Japu, a short film featuring Francis Kelly from Bush Mechanics, which is a tongue in cheek fantasy about how footy was introduced to Aboriginal culture by a ball landing in a billabong.
Find this movie	Indigenous film suppliers and distributors

CD

Aboriginal Rules Soundtrack (2007)

Tracks

M.A.G.P.I.E. (Football is like a ceremony) Purlja vs Football - Crocodile Johnson, Delwyn Granites, Elf Tranzporter and DJ Wasabi Tanami Road Wati Kura - Red Sand Band Down the Road - Big Bear and Caleb Hargraves M.A.G.P.I.E. (Papunya Sports) Nguru Warlalja (live) - Gordon Robertson No Building M.A.G.P.I.E. (Mt Theo) Warlukurlangu I watch them leave - Courtney Singleton and Luke Sullivan 1234 Nyarrpara-kurra na Yani? - Gordon Robertson Nyurru-wiyi Japu Japu - Ned Hargraves

If not noted otherwise, tracks by Thomas 'Big Bear' Saylor.

Where to from here?

• Check out the pages about Aboriginal sport
• Traditional Aboriginal sports games
• More on Aboriginal culture