The Last Australian Trackers - Documentary - Australia - Aboriginal People - French Version
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The Last Australian Trackers (2007)
Audience Award
Oceania International Documentary Film Festival 2008 (FIFO – Tahiti)
1963. In the Australian bush, the police are on the trail of tracker Billy Benn, on the run after killing his wife's lover and wounding two police officers who were chasing him. Will he disappear forever into the vast expanses of the Australian outback, or will he be caught by the police, aided for the occasion by the young tracker Teddy Egan? In the Queensland jungle, a six-year-old girl has been missing for nine days. The girl's parents are counting on tracker George Musgrave to find her before it's too late. To achieve this, George literally gets inside the head of the person he's looking for and methodically retraces their steps. These same qualities allow Mitjili Giban to find an American photographer lost in the desert, and Tommy George to bring a young Aboriginal cowboy back to the ranch after he's lost in a swamp.
Aboriginal people have practiced the art of tracking for thousands of years. But in the age of helicopters, 4x4s, and GPS, Australian police forces are using them less and less, with the current risk of losing this complex art based on intuition, listening and observation skills, and the intimate connection between humans and nature.
These tracking missions take us on fascinating adventures through the diverse landscapes of the Australian Outback, from magnificent gorges to red deserts and lush jungles, in pursuit of the secrets of these ancestral techniques that could soon disappear.
Directors: Eric Elléna and Vanessa Escalante