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Pooja Viswesh:

You’re listening to WTJU Charlottesville. For Arts This Week, we chatted with Joshua
Trevorrow, the First Nations Arts and Cultural Manager at Country Arts South Australia. He talks
about his upcoming screening of Nunga Screen at the Violet Crown on August 7th. Tell us a bit about yourself and your work.

Joshua Trevarrow:

Thank you, firstly, very much for having me and for all the support. It’s incredible. I’d like to
start, as always, by acknowledging the Kaurna people, these traditional lands I’m meeting on today,
and I extend my respect to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge their deep and spiritual
connection with the lands and waters of this area that I live and work. My name is Joshua Trevorrow.
I’m a Ngarrindjeri man, so I descend from the Salt Water people on the south coast of South
Australia, right down the bottom. I’m the First Nations Arts and Cultural Manager for Country Arts SA.
I’m a film producer and I’m the curator and programmer of Noongar Screen.

Pooja Viswesh:

How has your identity as a Ngarrindjeri man and your role as a First Nations Arts and Cultural
Manager shaped your vision for Nunga Screen over the years?

Joshua Trevarrow:

Firstly, as a Ngunjitji man, it’s an incredible opportunity to showcase all First Nations
Australians’ shared stories and, I guess, amplifying their unique voices and sharing that depth of
storytelling. There are many, many, many different nations and language groups across the country,
but in a lot of ways, that’s brought us all together and we have a lot of shared experiences that have
come out of that. And yeah, I think it’s just an incredible opportunity for me to work with a lot of those
First Nations filmmakers and particularly here. It’s just incredible to elevate their voices through the
medium of film, which I’ve always felt is just such an incredibly diverse medium of storytelling and
allows us to inform and educate while sort of entertaining films – that universal language that everyone
understands.

Pooja Viswesh:

What is one obstacle you’ve had to overcome when corroborating between many diverse
voices in a way that allows you to do justice to this project?

Joshua Trevarrow:

Yeah, what I always try to focus on primarily is a diversity of films within the program. Where
we’ve often struggled is for our young viewers. There is not a lot of First Nations film for young
viewers and I think that’s really important for our young First Nations kids here to see themselves
reflected on screen. A large portion of our Nunga Screen screenings are actually schools, so we try to
program around 50% of the program to be engaging for young viewers and then the second half of
the program often contains sort of, I suppose, themes for more mature audiences.

Pooja Viswesh:

What would you say was the best method you’ve found to strike a balance, like you said,
without compromising the integrity of the stories that you’re telling?

Joshua Trevarrow:

A lot of these filmmakers that feature in Nunga Screen have only made, it may be, their first
short film and I think that’s just really important for us to remember with the program is to just keep
providing the opportunities to elevate the voices of those filmmakers and get them exposure. We pay
the filmmaker a license fee to broadcast the film for the length of the program and then we also do a
royalty share of all funds raised through our foundation, through the Country Arts SA Foundation as
well, so you’d actually get some money back to the filmmakers as well and hopefully they continue
their journey.

Pooja Viswesh:

You’ve led documentary workshops and helped support emerging First Nations filmmakers.
How does this educational work tie into the broader mission of Nunga Screen and what growth have
you witnessed in your participants and even in your own work?

Joshua Trevarrow:

For me it’s actually about creating opportunities for First Nations filmmakers and creatives
that don’t necessarily just want to be key creatives. Where we have a particular skill shortage here is
in production. We have a lack of First Nations producers and in particular in Australia working with
non- Aboriginal producers can often potentially lead to some issues around cultural safety and really
just maintaining that authenticity of voice for those creatives as well.

Pooja Viswesh:

And what is one piece of advice that you would give to any aspiring filmmakers or project
managers that want to capture and tell the stories of other underserved communities?

Joshua Trevarrow:

Something we always talk about is respectful collaboration and listening and leaning in and
when working with any diverse groups of filmmakers is that the relationship can quite easily become
extractive so respectfully engaging and saying you know what how can we work together it’s not
about what we can take it’s about what we can give and that reciprocal nature.

Pooja Viswesh:

Thank you so much and where can listeners find more of your work?

Joshua Trevarrow:

Look, we were as I say we’re working on a feature-length documentary at the moment and
we’re having some very very good conversations with our national broadcaster here the ABC around
a television broadcast and a festival premiere next year here that will get some sort of streaming or
worldwide release access eventually.

Pooja Viswesh:

To learn more about Joshua Trevarro and his work at Nunga Screen visit countryarts.org.au.
The Violet Crown in downtown Charlottesville will be hosting a screening of Nunga Screen at 7 p.m.
Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College.
PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming. Learn more at
pvcc.edu. For WTJU, I’m Pooja Viswesh.

Nunga Screen is part of the Virginia Film Festival at Violet Crown series and is being presented by Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia in partnership with Country Arts SA and the Virginia Film Festival.