You know this fella called Shakespeare?

Indigenous film director Tyson Mowarin’s transports the Bard to the Pilbara in his award-winning short film 'Undiscovered Country'
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Wacky reinterpretations of Shakespeare are a dime a dozen. But the idea of Indigenous teenagers pondering Hamlet on a magnificent rocky outcrop in the Pilbara is certainly mind-boggling. This could have been heavy-handed and strained, but in writer-director Tyson Mowarin’s stunningly beautiful 20-minute film Undiscovered Country, the words from the play sit lightly in a screenplay spare in dialogue but rich in visual and sonic storytelling, with cinematography by Torstein Dyrting ACS, and a warm, round musical score by David Bridie.

Tyson Mowarin recently won the Event Cinemas Australian Short Screenplay Award as part of the Sydney Film Festival, along with a $5000 prize, with the judges commending ‘the subtle use of Shakespeare in the story.’

‘I like the idea of plenty of space in a film,’ says Mowarin on the phone from his home in Roebourne in Ngarluma country in WA’s Pilbara region, where the short film, produced by Robyn Marais and funded to the tune of $70,000 by ScreenWest, was set and shot. ‘It’s a bit like songwriting. You don’t have to clog up a verse with a hundred words when five or six is enough to get the message across.’

In the film, a couple of well-worn lines from Hamlet are handed down with humour and diffidence from a concerned Uncle (the late Tom E Lewis) to his wayward ‘silly bugger’ nephews (Nelson Coppin, Maverick Easton, Xavier Easton and Sydney Easton). Overlooking red countryside and the sparkling blue of a dam, the uncle recites these words from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1: The undiscovered country from whose bourn | No traveler returns, puzzles the will | And makes us rather bear those ills we have | Than fly to others that we know not of?

‘Like everyone who reads Shakespeare, I gave it my own interpretation,’ says Mowarin, who has the self-deprecating manner and outback accent of a person who admits they don’t actually read that much Shakespeare. ‘The idea came in a ScreenWest workshop I did about five years ago in Perth where I was working with a mentor, an English fellow by the name of Paul Welsh. He understood my idea about connecting to country and came up with that passage from Hamlet that connects the idea of country and identity. I took that bit of Hamlet and interpreted in in my own way.’

Mowarin said he wanted to give an extra dimension to a structure typical of many Indigenous stories – ‘a lecture film where the Elder takes the young fellas out bush to connect with country and tells them off.’ Instead, in Undiscovered Country, ‘the uncle takes them out bush and teaches them from Shakespeare – as well as telling them off!’ he says with a laugh.

Despite his modesty about his latest ‘little short film’, Mowarin is no newcomer and has been working in the industry since about 2007. His last film was the 2017 made-for-TV documentary Connection to Country, which was commissioned as part of the ‘You Are Here’ series and screened on NITV and SBS, as well as at ACMI last year after premiering at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival. You can watch the trailer here (though sadly we can’t find a trailer for Undiscovered Country): 

Working as a filmmaker, digital storyteller and musician for many years, Mowarin’s cross-platform media company based in Roebourne is called Weerianna Street Media (named after the street he lives in) and is focused particularly on making games, apps and videos for handheld devices in order to preserve Indigenous languages and cultures. Most famous of these is the ingenious IPhone app Welcome to Country which uses GPS information to show which group’s land you are on, some information about the land and culture and a short welcome video showing a local Indigenous person speaking the local language. Werianna is also the company behind iCampfire TV, an Indigenous film repository.

It all sounds very interesting and productive. Mowarin is full of praise for the ‘amazing creativity’ that springs out of the ‘dusty little town of Roebourne, the oldest town between Geraldton and Darwin. But having watched his latest film, Undiscovered Country, one question niggles, and perhaps its patronizing to ask it. Is it really possible that Indigenous teenagers might fall in love with Shakespeare? This is after all a generation in love with its handheld electronic devices.  ‘Ah well, the young fellas in my film grasped the idea of it, and they enjoyed it,’ Mowarin says. ‘That’s the thing with Shakespeare. Everyone can take it and interpret it in their own way.’ It’s also interesting to note that in his story, none of the boys can get a mobile phone signal and so the teachings of their uncle (and the joys of swimming, bush-walking and kangaroo-eating), become the only entertainment. A lesson in there somewhere for all parents.

Undiscovered Country is currently entered in a number of film festivals and talks are underway for it to be screened on NITV or SBS at a later date.

Rochelle Siemienowicz is the ArtsHub Group's Education and Career Editor. She was previously a journalist for Screenhub and is a writer, film critic and cultural commentator with a PhD in Australian cinema. She was the co-host of Australia's longest-running film podcast 'Hell is for Hyphenates' and has written a memoir, Fallen, published by Affirm Press. Her second book, Double Happiness, a novel, will be published by Midnight Sun in 2024. Instagram: @Rochelle_Rochelle Twitter: @Milan2Pinsk