Kanyini

From the days of investment banking to those of documentary filmmaking, Melanie Hogan has certainly had an interesting journey.

After graduating with a first class honours degree in economics from the University of New South Wales and working in the corporate finance division of Macquarie Bank, Melanie decided to leave the bank in 2000 to nurture her creative side. She studied at the New York Film Academy in New York and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (Directing) in 2001.

During Melanie's first year out of NIDA she directed a short film, which was accepted into the Los Angeles Film Festival and was funded by the Australian Film Commission to undertake a director's attachment on Young Lions (Ch 9).

After a few months in television Melanie was offered a position to assist the film director, Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, Bandit Queen) in London; an experience that allowed Melanie to work on a number of projects ranging from commercials to script development.

On returning to Australia in 2003, Melanie began to write and soon discovered aspects to her country's history she had hitherto unknown whilst researching in the Mitchell Library. Aware she had only been taught one side of history, Melanie travelled into the desert in the hope of learning more from the Indigenous people of Australia. It was at the base of Uluru that she met Uncle Bob.

As Melanie says, one minute she was sitting between Uluru and Kata Tjuta with Bob and his family on a clear, starry night, the next, 'Kanyini' was made and in her hands and Hopscotch wanted to distribute it. It's been an exciting and challenging journey and in retrospect, a magical one too.

In a nutshell, KANYINI was born out of my desire to understand and connect with Indigenous Australia.

Being part of the dominant culture in a recently "colonised" country I had next to no contact whatsoever with Indigenous Australia for the first 26 years of my life. In fact it was only in April 2004 that I realised I didn't have one Indigenous friend. Now, in a country where Indigenous people have lived for at least 40,000 years, this fact was more than crazy, it was downright ridiculous, so I set off to the desert pretty much straight away, to learn about Indigenous Australia - in a blackfella kinda way - through communication and relationship and following the direction of the wind.

It is fair to say that in my homeland, Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people still seem to be confused about each other and are finding it difficult to journey together. Knowing this, Bob and I wanted to create a film that may help to bring Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people closer together not just in Australia but all over the world. As a young person, I feel very strongly that many of the values held by our Indigenous brothers and sisters could be of enormous benefit for society at large, particularly their care and respect for Mother Earth and all forms of life. In a world that is going a little too fast, in my opinion, Indigenous Wisdom may hold some of the answers non-Indigenous people are looking for.

I hope people enjoy KANYINI. Hearing Uncle Bob tell his people's heart-breaking story with such honesty and love, gentleness and strength continues to amaze me, despite the fact I have seen this film over a hundred times. Uncle Bob always says the hardest thing to change in the world is 'negative attitude'. If KANYINI can help create some positive attitudes then we're on our way to healing some of the mistakes of the past. And that excites me.

Finally I just want to say thank you to Uncle Bob for trusting me with his story. It's been an incredible journey and a journey that has only just begun.

- Melanie Hogan