Alec Morgan, Ablaze co-writer/director's exclusive interview

Alec Morgan: Making those films many years ago gave me background knowledge about Bill Onus. So when I was asked by the National Film and Sound Archive to look at a piece of silent film found in their vault, I immediately recognized Bill and his relatives and had a sense that it was possibly made by Bill or he had a big hand in making it.

Alec Morgan: Ablaze was tossed out of a lot of funding bodies to begin with. Tom’s amazing knowledge of the industry and his persistence in the face of enormous odds was key to getting Ablaze funded and made. As was Sue’s enthusiastic backing and her industry knowledge. Both were incredible supporters of what we were trying to do right the way through. Jeff and Ari Harrison’s commitment to Ablaze occurred after we had been rejected by a lot of funding bodies and their passion for Ablaze was the catalyst in turning a negative situation into a positive. They have been so important in getting Ablaze out into the world. I have never worked with a distribution company like Umbrella Entertainment that has been so tireless in getting the film seen by as many people as possible. Thank goodness there is such an organisation in Australia. Our industry would be much poorer without them.

Alec Morgan: That was not difficult. Many people that we interviewed knew of Bill or even grew up with him and they were delighted to tell their experiences of him and his struggle for First Nations rights on-camera. It was a joyful experience to have worked with such amazing group in the making of Ablaze.

Alec Morgan: Most of my documentaries are historical, so I have seen an enormous amount of archival footage that was finally used in Ablaze. Finding Indigenous material in archives can be a long time-consuming process, so all thanks go to Macquarie University in Sydney who supported the research period of Ablaze so that I could spend a lot more time delving into the archives. We chose animation instead of recreations with actors and the idea to use animation came quite early to tell brief sections of Bill’s story in a different and modern way. Thanks to Juliet Miranda Rowe for her wonderful and colourful animations and to Murray Vanderveer for his digital motion graphics work.

Alec Morgan: I don’t really have a favourite scene. As a filmmaker, I am just so pleased that all the scenes hold together to tell a compelling story. And much credit for that work goes to Tony Stevens the editor. Tony is great to work with and is always coming up with fresh approaches to the material.

Alec Morgan: Personally, seeing Tiriki take his grandfather’s lost film over to the descendants of the Pilbara strike of 1946 who reside in a community called Warralong in Western Australia. It was a deeply moving experience to screen that footage to them after they had been denied seeing it for over 70 years. We were also lucky to have got it filmed – Covid-19 was always threatening and we only managed to film at the community and fly out just as the lock-down occurred.

Alec Morgan: At this stage, too early to tell. First Nations storytelling will continue as it has always done, no matter what. Hopefully, the new government is committed also to funding storytelling on film. The previous government did enormous and deliberate damage to our film industry over the past decade which is a major reason why funding Ablaze was so difficult. It needs financial support to recover so we can continue telling Australian stories.

Alec Morgan: The response has been incredibly positive. Both Tiriki and I have been involved now in quite a number of screenings and Q and A’s and many of the questions have been heartfelt and probing. Many have said that they did not know of the history of Australia that the film reveals, let alone anything about Bill Onus. So, it is inspiring for us to know that we have been able to provide audiences with new knowledge about Bill Onus and his life.

Alec Morgan: It was a long, at times immensely difficult, often exciting and ultimately satisfactory journey. We are both very proud of Ablaze and very excited that we finally were able to get it out into the world for audiences to see it. I guess we feel like we accomplished what we set out to do.