My life as I live it

Essie Coffey’s first film, MY SURVIVAL AS AN ABORIGINAL (1978), is now a classic. It introduced us to the life of her family and her community in far northwest New South Wales. Essie’s new film returns to her home in Dodge City where Essie and the A-Team are nominating for the local Shire Elections. Cutting from people and conditions in the present to the same people and places of the past, we see that some things have changed and some have stayed the same. The racism is still there, but the CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) has brought a new pride and hope for the future. In place of the arrests on pension day, there is now police-community liaison and the hope that the tragedies like the death in custody of Essie’s nephew Lloyd Boney will not happen again. We hear testimony about Lloyd’s death from CDEP supervisor, Dallas Skuthorpe, a young participant in the earlier film. We meet up again with other kids from the 1978 film too - some now with families of their own, and involved in education, art, and sports; or still trying to overcome the personal effects of what happened in the past. Throughout the film, we share the lively thoughts and presence of Essie herself, popularly known as Bush Queen, as always, “a fighter and a voice of her people”. This portrait of an Aboriginal community working towards self-determination is a testament to Essie’s life.