UNCLE (2024)
Short Documentary / 20:00
In Production in 2023-24
Australian Cultural Fund // UNCLE
A Gunai/Kurnai man journeys from the remote community of Aurukun to Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust to care for his mother, reckoning with his past to find personhood as a man who walks in many worlds.
On Country I’m one person, in the city I’m another. All my life I’ve tried to belong. but I conquered that. I survived in the Western world. —uncle jason coombes
About
UNCLE (AUS, 2024, 20min) is a short documentary about the extraordinary life of Uncle Jason Coombes.
Growing up Aboriginal in an Anglo-Australian family in the 70s, Uncle Jason’s coming-of-age was a clash of families, cultures and identities—black, white and gay. UNCLE celebrates resilience, LGBTQIA+ pride and what it means to walk one’s own path through the nuanced perspective of one indefinable man.
Weaving home from the desert sands of Far North Queensland to Victoria’s deep south-eastern Bung Yarnda country, Uncle’s story coincides with World Pride, a Referendum and a goodbye. Cinematically luscious, tonal and embracing a juxtaposition between observational storytelling with the heightened world of drag performance in extremis, UNCLE arrives at an “imaginative truth”. Offering lessons in living boldly and with self-compassion to us all, this is a film for audiences ready for an uplifting take on the healing power to self-determine one’s own path.
Director Alexandra George
Producers Uncle Jason Coombes, Alexandra George
Associate Producer Emiel Eddy
Creative & Cultural Mentor Hannah Brontë
With Uncle Jason Coombes
Cinematographer Petra Leslie
2nd Unit DOP Kate Cornish
Still Photography Glendyn Ivin
Legals Terri Janke & Company
Supported by Creative Australia’s MATCH Lab and the Australian Cultural Fund
And all those who will be thanked in time.