We Are Still Here

Stories have an additional value for colonised people. They preserve knowledge and ways of thinking which conquerors try to erase, and they help to maintain a sense of community even when populations are dispersed. It is extraordinarily difficult, however, for people with the financial disadvantages prevalent in such groups to bring their stories to the screen. 2022’s Toronto International Film Festival has done an unusually good job of supporting such films, and this is one of the highlights, a collection of stories from eight different filmmaking teams in Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa which are woven together to form a powerful whole.

Shunning the familiar linear anthology format in a manner which itself speaks to a difference in narrative traditions, this film cuts back and forth between stories set in the past, present and future, connecting them stylistically and thematically, showing how experiences of violence and techniques of resistance echo across space and time. There is a frame of sorts, provided by a gorgeously animated sequence which follows two people who are out fishing in their canoe when they are hit by a storm, out of which a colossal frigate with a Union Jack streaming from its mast appears. These tales, we are told, were made in response to 250 years of colonisation. Some address it directly; others explore its effects; all speak for and celebrate the survivors. In a desert, a hunter offers to guide a lost white man to the place where he belongs, calming him when he is terrified by the sounds of the night, but issues of trust arise – will either of them survive the journey?

Elsewhere, a woman laboriously combs and straightens her daughter’s hair, hoping that this way, dressed in English-style clothes, she can attract a white husband, but the daughter wants to go to war against the invaders, horrified by stories of the atrocities they have committed. In their future, in somebody else’s war, a terrified man runs through a trench, trying to catch a glimpse of what is going on, to acquire some context. In the year 2274, a girl arrives at a trading post, selling scarves, looking for medicine, looking for connections in the absence of a shared language. In that looks like our own time, a man tries to stop another girl from spraying graffiti which it’s his job to clean up, but they have a mutual enemy who won’t see any difference between them. A mother and her adult daughter pass Captain Cook’s cottage en route to a protest and share a story about it before a present day threat emerges.

At another protest , a young Australian activist is arrested and finds himself in a cage with Maori men performing a haka, gradually connecting with a tradition which is not his own but which speaks to shared experience and might help to bring him healing. We also meet a man in Australia’s Northern Territory who keeps being harassed by a white cop who confiscates his alcohol (the State has a long history of discrimination of this type), but the man has a secret, and through it all the joy and love of life buried beneath the surface of these stories is set loose.

Character is at the forefront of most of these tales, and the strong ensemble cast establishes it with ease even when the time we spend with each individual is very short. Whilst this builds into portraits of communities, there is no danger of their members being homogenised in the process, and a good balance is struck between acknowledging the differences between Maori and various Australian ways of being and recognising how their similar experiences of subjugation have led to commonalities. Importantly, the film identifies colonialism as an ongoing project, not something which happened in the past and can now be forgotten, with or without apologies.

An important piece of work raising voices which are rarely heard internationally, We Are Still Here is also a platform for some considerable talent both behind and in front of the camera, which will leave you wanting more. On top of this, it’s a rich and satisfying cinematic experience, whoever you are.