Gulpilil: One Red Blood

Darlene Johnson
Australia 2002
56 min

Gulpilil: One Red Blood is a documentary about the career of Aboriginal actor, dancer, and cultural delegate, David Gulpilil, using interview as well as archival footage.

David Gulpilil asked director Darlene Johnson to create One Red Blood where on the set of The Tracker he speaks about Indigenous philosophy which bridges the Aboriginal world view and western sensibility.

The film follows Gulpilil into his dual life—as a reknown actor into the spotlight and as an Indigenous elder into his isolated community of Ramingining where his tribal status and relative affluence leads to social obligations. You'll be surprised how spartan Gulpilil lives.

With the title of the film One Red Blood Gulipilil wants to express the universal connectedness of all creatures within the same inhabitable world of the Dreaming, similar to the Eastern philosophical tradition of the presence of the Divine in all things.

Gulpilil: One Red Blood is a rare insight into both David Gulpilil's life beyond the acting and into the Indigenous world view, expressed by one of the great actors of Indigenous Australia.

I was a young fair skinned Koori woman from the city and he was a fully traditional man from Arnhem Land. What a challenge!—Darlene Johnson, director

Cast	David Gulpilil Rolf de Heer Phillip Noyce Jack Thompson Justine Saunders Gary Foley themselves
Release dates	2002
Video/DVD Release Date	2 February 2007
Awards	not available
Rating	PG (television), M
Language level	not available
Distributor	Ronin Films
Soundtrack	Felicity Fox
Genre	Documentary
Notes	David Gulpilil has acted in the following movies: Walkabout (1971), at the age of 14 Mad Dog Morgan (1976) Storm Boy (1976) The Last Wave (1977) Crocodile Dundee (1986) The Tracker (2002) The Proposition Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) Ten Canoes (2007) Just three years before Gulpilil's appearance in Nicholas Roeg's 1971 "Walkabout," white actors were still appearing in blackface to play Aboriginal characters in Australian films.

Where to from here?

• Learn more about Aboriginal history
• Find out about Aboriginal people and their lives
• Aboriginal culture