''Contact'' is a 2009 Australian documentary film that tells the story of 20

Martu people The Martu (Mardu) are a grouping of several Aboriginal Australian peoples in the Western Desert cultural bloc. Name The Martu people were originally speakers of various Wati languages in the Western Desert dialect continuum whose identity coa ...

who in 1964 became the last people in the Great Sandy Desert to have come into contact with

Europeans Europeans are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the states of Europe. Groups may be defined by common genetic ancestry, common language, or both. Pan and Pfeil (2004) ...

Synopsis

In 1964, a

Blue Streak Blue Streak or Bluestreak may refer to: Entertainment * ''Blue Streak'' (album), a 1995 album by American blues guitarist Luther Allison * Blue Streak (comics), a secret identity used by three separate Marvel Comics supervillains * Bluestreak (co ...

test missile launched from Woomera by

ELDO Eldo is a given name is a variation of Eldho and may refer to the following people People *Eldo Abraham, Indian politician * Eldo T. Ridgway (1880–1955), American physician and politician Fictional characters *''Eldo Davip'',a fictional soldie ...

was expected to land in the

Percival Lakes The Percival Lakes form a string of "S" shaped ephemeral salt lakes in the north of Western Australia. They lie at the southern region of the Great Sandy Desert and east of Karlamilyi National Park. They stretch in an east-west direction for ...

area of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, an area traditionally belonging to the Martu. Two Native Welfare patrol officers, Walter MacDougall and Terry Long, were sent to the area to make sure it was uninhabited. When they arrived, they located a group of 20 Martu women and children in the area. The group had never seen white skinned people before and upon seeing the patrol officers they wanted nothing to do with them, and they ran away from them. Despite the presence of the Martu people in the area, a missile was still fired from Woomera, but it went far off course, landing hundreds of miles away from the lakes. After several months, a second missile was scheduled to be deployed and Walter MacDougall and Terry Long returned to the area with two interpreters, Punuma Sailor and Nyani, in an attempt to take the group of Martu women and children away from the Percival Lakes area. When the group was located this time, the patrol officers tied their ankles together to stop them from escaping and took them to

Jigalong Jigalong is a remote Aboriginal community of approximately 333 people located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Location Jigalong is in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, approximately east of the town of Newman in the Shire ...

mission. Throughout the film, the experiences of the Martu women and children are described by Yuwali who was 17 years old when she was a part of this group back in 1964. Now 62 years old, she shares her memories of growing up around Percival Lakes, her

dingo The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (Basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia (continent), Australia. Its taxonomic classification is de ...

Yuntupa and the first time that she saw the patrol officers and their car.

Literature

A book about the same events documented in ''Contact'' was released in 2005, entitled ''Cleared Out: First Contact in the Western Desert'' by Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali.

Awards

References

External links

Contact on DVD
{{Films and television series about Aboriginal Australia 2009 films 2009 documentary films Australian documentary films Films set in Western Australia Documentary films about Aboriginal Australians Films set in the Outback 2000s English-language films