Journey Home, David Gulpilil

After his passing, legendary Yolngu actor David Gulpilil is brought back to his home country in a continent-traversing commemoration worthy of his transcendent talent.

David Gulpilil was one of Australia’s greatest screen actors, beginning with his first performance in 1971’s Walkabout (MIFF 2015) and continuing over the next five decades through roles in landmark films including Rabbit-Proof Fence (MIFF 2015) and The Tracker (MIFF 2015). After his death in 2021, his body was repatriated from Murray Bridge, South Australia, to be laid to rest in his homeland on Yolngu country. An extraordinary odyssey across more than 3000 kilometres of outback road from Victor Harbor to Darwin, followed by a chartered plane and helicopter flight to his birthplace in East Arnhem Land, Gulpilil’s final journey is recorded in this moving, thoughtfully observed documentary.

Gulpilil’s life and work were previously explored in his own words in Darlene Johnson’s Gulpilil: One Red Blood (MIFF 2002) and Molly Reynolds’s My Name Is Gulpilil; in this final chapter of his singular story, narrated by Hugh Jackman and Yolngu hip-hop artist Baker Boy, co-directors Trisha Morton-Thomas (producer of Audrey Napanangka, MIFF 2022) and Maggie Miles (producer of Paper Planes, MIFF 2014) portray the man through the eyes of his community. Intimately chronicling the epic trip through to its culmination in a Yolngu funeral ceremony, Journey Home, David Gulpilil serves as a fitting tribute to a legend of Australian cinema.