Four Indigenous filmmakers have been given the chance to shine in as Heads of Department, evaluating their professional careers.
At the beginning of 2020, Director Rolf De Heer began to pursue a passion project he had been working on for the past decade.
A story that follows character BlackWomen, who battles privilege and pestilence when she finds herself abandoned in a cage on a trailer in the middle of the desert.
Based on real events, 'The Survival of Kindness' tells a story that parallels the entire history of the devastating impact of colonisation on Australia's first peoples.
De Heer made a promise to himself that a story like 'The Survival of Kindness' had to be told correctly or else it wouldn't feel authentic.
"If I were to tell this story, I needed a different approach to the crew of the film," he said.
"In terms of what the film was trying to say, the themes of racism and so on, it seemed ridiculous to be going around the countryside with the crew I usually work with."
Having migrated to Sydney when he was eight years old, De Heer, who is originally from Heemskerk in the Netherlands, wanted to find filmmakers from different backgrounds.
"I understood it needed to be a fresh crew – with youth, diversity and gender balance," said De Heer.
"The story needed to be told in collaboration with people who are talented, thoughtful and passionate but under-represented."
'The Survival of Kindness' gave the opportunity to four young emerging Indigenous film crews, who were waiting for their chance to shine in the spotlight.
"I sought out First Nations crew- Australian Indigenous – and found an apparently talented emerging group," De Heer said.
"Though with so little experience that it was in some ways hard to tell. But I was able to offer each of them their first Head of Department role."
Maya Coombs
Yankuntjatjarra women Coombs is a designer based in Adelaide, South Australia.
She graduated with Honours in Creative Arts (Screen) from Flinders University in 2019, and in 2022 was named on Inside Film's Rising Talent list.
In 2022 Coombs gained her first credits as Production Designer on Rolf de Heer's The Survival of Kindness (2022) and on Gravity Film's documentary The Last Daughter (2022).
Prior to these credits, Coombs worked under Production Designer Scott Bird on the Stan Original series The Tourist.
She has also assisted designers Naaman Marshall on Mortal Kombat and Melinda Doring on Stateless.
Her other screen credits include Closer Productions' The Hunting and Screentime's Pine Gap.
Adam Dixon-Galea
Adam Dixon-Galea
Kaurna Man Adam Dixon-Galea graduated from Flinders University, Adelaide with a Bachelor in Screen and Media in 2019 and quickly gained experience working on high profile local productions.
In 2021 Dixon-Galea worked on the ABC/Netflix children's dirt biking series MaveriX, the largest local production to be filmed in the Red centre.
In an SAFC supported post-production attachment role, he worked under industry leader Pete Best of Best FX on sound post.
In 2022, in his first Head of Department production role, Dixon-Galea was the Sound Designer, Sound Recordist, FX Editor on Rolf de Heer's feature film The Survival of Kindness.
Working alongside Pete Best, Dixon-Galea dialogue edited two 2022 feature documentaries: Madeleine Perry's The Angels: Kickin' the Door Down, chronicling the seventies Aussie rock group and Larissa Behrendt's You Can Go Now, tracing 50 years of First Nations activism in Australia.
Isaac Lindsay
Originally from Coorong, Ngarrindjeri man Isaac Lindsay now hails from Berri in South Australia's Riverland.
As a boy growing up, Lindsay became passionate about cinema, films, the movies, dreams.
Lindsay's start in his passion came in 2013, when he attended a workshop at Port Augusta ABC Radio and where he made his first short, PostCard From the Edge.
That led to his being part of the SAFC "micro docs" initiative in 2015, and an attachment to the electrics department on Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country.
More attachments followed, until in 2018 Lindsay wrote and directed his first funded short, Konya, with Natasha Wanganeen and the late Ningali Lawford Wolf which played at the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival.
Lindsay's editing work on the Kaurna Welcome to Country for the 2020 Adelaide Film Festival led to his first editing role for The Survival of Kindness, which has its International Premiere in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
Lindsay is currently writing his own feature project, Bloodland, which he also intends to direct and edit.
Anna Liebzeit
Born and raised Liebzeit makes most of her work on the lands of the Kulin Nations in Victoria.
For 25 years she has explored sound as a creative medium, through both live performance and collaborative projects, with her sound ranging from hard rock to ethereal soundscape.
She is interested and active in visual, performance and audio art including installation, sound design, music composition and performance and education.
Liebzeit has had sonic installation work appear at major institutions and festivals including Samstag (2021), MONA FOMA (2020), and the National Gallery of Victoria.
Her compositions for Cornelius and Dee's plays SHIT and LOVE travelled to the Venice Biennale in 2019, where she utilised live instrumentation (guitar – electric, acoustic and slide, violin, percussion, baglamas, clarinet), field recordings, sampling and voice.
Her work intersects song, soundscape and score across genres including film, theatre, performance, radio, television and installations.
The Survival of Kindness is her first feature film. It is unlikely to be her last.
"It was a joy to work with them," De Heer Said.
"They had the raw talent and what they lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm and passion and energy."
'The Survival of Kindness' made its international debut at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival where it competed for the highest award of the Festival, known as the Golden Bear.
