Journey home, David Gulpilil: ‘Extraordinary’ 4,000km, 10-month effort to bring actor home | Australian film

He was a man who danced between two worlds, carried stories across continents, and on his final journey, returned to the land that made him.

Before his death in November 2021, actor David Gulpilil made one last request: to be buried at his ancestral home, deep in the remote East Arnhem land. Honoring this desire has become a massive project and the subject of a documentary to be released across Australia next week called Journey Home, David Gulpilil.

It was a profound repatriation journey of more than 4,000 kilometres, spanning almost a year and starting in Murray Bridge, South Australia, where Gulpilil was receiving treatment for terminal lung cancer. Airplanes, boats, vans and helicopters were variously commandeered to transport Gulpilil’s coffin along the way. There were also long walks. It charted a course through the landscape that shaped the actor’s life and legacy, culminating in the place of his birth: Gobulul, in Yolo County, on September 20, 2022, about 10 months after his death.

The odyssey was filmed by filmmakers Trisha Morton-Thomas and Maggie Miles, who combined archival footage to document Gulpilil’s “ticket home,” as they called it, and the 10-day funeral ritual, called baboro, held at Ramengineng and Gobulul, which buried him.

The directing duo say filming was emotionally and logistically demanding.

“We’re all thinking on our feet all the time,” Miles says. “You have that balance between photographing culture and unusual emotions… and thinking about logistics which is really challenging. How are we going to get from point A to point B? Do we have enough water? Is everyone coping well with the heat? There are so many people and so many activities going on all the time, you don’t have time to stop and think – you just keep shooting.”

After three days on the road to Darwin, David’s body was flown to Nhulunbai on the Goff Peninsula, where the plane flew low over local communities so people could say goodbye. He then remained in the Nhulunbuye morgue for eight months while his grieving family waited for the rainy season to end. Hopes that the ground would dry out enough to push Gulpilil to Gulbulul were dwindling. A ranger barge, a helicopter, and, at one point, what Gulpilil’s son, Jimmy, calls a “tiny zombie” — no oars, no motor — were used to navigate the crocodile-infested tidal rivers.

“We were drowning in mangrove mud,” Morton Thomas recalls. “And you knew you had a good chance of getting out if the alligator decided to have dinner.”

The 90-minute film, narrated by Hugh Jackman, tells the story of Baker Boy, and is produced by Jayda Gulpilil, Gulpilil’s eldest son.

“There would have been an easier way – some people said: ‘Let’s put him to rest.’ [in Ramingining] “His brother was there so everyone could come,” says Gida. “But after he died, we really realized that we had to fulfill his wishes – by any means.”

A two-week journey of celebration, song, dance and cultural process through a system of tribes, clans and families, culminating in the burial of Gulpilil, in a sacred place that the actor had long protected – “as if he was protecting me,” he says.

Sensitivity, expertise in protocol, and the implicit trust of the Yolŋu families involved were crucial when filming two sacred ceremonies featured in the film: Bäpurru, which took 10 days; And the initiation of Gulpilil’s grandson, which was delayed to coincide with the funeral – a farewell to one man, and the creation of another.

There were moments when the camera needed to pull back. “The family was incredibly open about access to the ceremonies,” Morton-Thomas says. “We had to put a moral barrier in front of ourselves and say, ‘No, we’re not going to cross that line. We’re going to allow the family to feel their grief in these moments.'”

The archival footage used traces Gulpilil’s career since the early 1970s. At the age of sixteen, his skill as a dancer caught the attention of British director Nicolas Roeg, and his 1971 film Walkabout launched a career that would span five decades (although his name was misspelled in the final cut and on the poster as “David Gumpilil”).

There is footage of a 17-year-old Gulpilil on his way to the Cannes Film Festival, then speaking only a smattering of English, passing through London to meet the Queen. “Winning awards, traveling the world,” he says in the footage as he reflects on his meteoric rise. “I walked the red carpet and went to a John Lennon concert… and hung out with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley.”

Starring roles followed in films including Storm Boy, The Last Wave, Crocodile Dundee, Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Tracker, for which he won an AFI Award. He narrated Ten Canoes in Yolŋu Matha, and gave a moving performance in Charlie’s Country, for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2014.

Gulpilil used to say that he moved between the worlds of black and white Australia with ease; “It was easy, like drinking coffee – milk and two sugars,” he once told a journalist. But those close to him oppose this; “He walked in two worlds and at times that tore him apart,” his childhood friend Yengia Mark Guyula, a man of the Djabarrpuyŋu clan and Liya-Dhälinymirr people and now an independent member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, told the Northern Territory Parliament after his death.

Not included in Journey Home are Gulpilil’s later admissions, made in the 2021 documentary My Name is Gulpilil, that he became addicted to drugs and alcohol early in his career, culminating in two suspended sentences for domestic violence in 2011 and 2012.

“Yes, he struggled, but he did so with generosity,” Geda says now. “I watched him in both of these worlds, but he taught me, I think, how to survive better through the education he never could have.”

Gulpilil remains distinguished as an indigenous actor who achieved international fame while remaining deeply rooted in traditional life. Despite his father’s long absence during his film career, he remembers his regular return to the country with warmth.

“He went away a lot, but we were happy to stay home and wait for him to finish his work and come and share his work with us and watch his films over and over again,” he says. “We love it when he gets out there and shares his culture and our culture with the world.”

It seems that Gulpilil was never able to manage financially – because he always donated everything. As one of his relatives says in Journey Home: “Some people were confused. They thought he would be the richest Yolŋu man on the planet.”

But Gulpilil’s view of wealth was simple. “When I get paid for a film, I share it with my family,” he says in the film. “This is what I do with the money.”

A good promise to his father did not end with burial. He now plans to build a house, based on a design by Glenn Murcutt, on the site where Gulpilil was buried, where all of the actor’s awards and memorabilia will be displayed. With millions in mining revenue and government grants, the Yulu clan built infrastructure on and around the site, including a new 100-kilometre road that previously disappeared after every rainy season. Jed and his younger brother Jimmy plan to live there full time.

When asked what he hopes audiences, especially non-Indigenous viewers, will take away from the documentary, Guida said: “I know my father wanted everyone to walk away and feel like they were a part of this. They walked away and had a greater understanding of who he really was to his family.”

“Pride,” Miles adds. “Proud of this amazing human being who was proud to be Australian. He dedicated his whole life to building a bridge between the two cultures.”