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Yirrkala, on the eastern tip of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and WA's Western Desert region are separated by 3000 kilometres (or 54 hours) of rural highway and gravel road. At the Western Desert end is the red and theatrically sparse Country of Martu artist Curtis Taylor. Taylor's work imagines the contemporary implications of time-honoured Martu lore. In his film Mamu (2010), ghosts stalk a youth who shared photos of sacred paintings online. Days away in the coastal community of Yirrkala, Yolngu filmmaker Ishmael Marika also puts his community's fireside yarns on video. His short drama Galka (2014) depicts a clay-painted spirit who preys on straying children.
Despite the distance between them, Taylor and Marika have converged on the same conclusion: Indigenous cautionary tales make for a thrillingly local brand of horror, describing everything from isolated highway breakdowns to wicked clamshells that pull unwary fisherman beneath the incoming tide. The appeal of the horror genre is not just its gory lo-fi aesthetic, but its adaptability to contemporary regional life. 'Everybody has sat around the campfire late at night telling horror stories,' says Taylor. 'Horror is accessible and enticing for a lot of people. It's fun and sad, all together. It can be low budget and still good.'1
Already mutual fans, Marika...