We at Dogmilk are so proud to present five screenings of our 4-channel immersive film all circles the moon and dirt shines in the sun on Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th of December, in the North Magdalen Laundry of the Abbotsford Convent. The work is an expanded archival work that plays across 4 screens and is made up of over 4000 separate clips, all recorded by DSTV, a videography company from Toraja in the highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Several members of Dogmilk have been working on a documentary project, with the working title ALUK, in the highland region of Toraja since mid-2017. Initially we were interested in the unique funeral ceremonies and death rituals practiced in Toraja, but like with many documentaries, the focus of the work changes radically over the course of development. Our second shooting trip to Toraja in 2019 saw us connecting with two emerging filmmakers, Wahyu and Afifah, from Makassar (capital of South Sulawesi, largest city near Toraja), who have since become integral collaborators on the project and Dogmilk members. We also worked very closely with Torajan videography company Delta Sangalla’ TV (DSTV). What we had initially intended on filming on our first trip to Toraja, we realised already existed and was continuing to be filmed daily by videography companies like DSTV. They make a living from filming, editing and broadcasting Torajan social and ceremonial life, and have been doing so for over fifteen years. We shadowed them and they shadowed us throughout this second trip; swapping techniques, sharing tips and talking shop.

We worked very well with Wahyu, a talented editor and creative director who introduced us to a friend of his, Afifah, a cinephile, translator and researcher. In early 2020, Wahyu visited Melbourne, to continue working with us on this project as editor and co-director. His trip was fatefully cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. This interruption, whilst prohibiting us from working with one another physically or returning to Toraja safely, prompted us to think of alternative methods of working together whilst deepening and expanding our relationships with Toraja and the Makassar film community.

This was an opportunity for us to consider our filmmaking method, and how it affects, and is affected by, our approach to ethics, storytelling and aesthetics. Here was an opportunity to explore aspects of the project that had existed peripherally until then, to explore in greater depth the enormous DSTV video archive, with the intention of contrasting and analysing the differences between local and foreign lenses. Ostensibly, all the footage that we had shot over our two trips to Toraja existed within those archives, but existed with a different perspective, intention and culture. With the support of Asialink Arts, we (myself, Wahyu, Afifah, and Chris Cochrane-Friedric) decided on a collective project entitled Sipakatuo (Glorify One Another), carried out almost entirely virtually, involving the creation of a 4-channel film created entirely from the DSTV video archive, entitled all circles the moon & dirt shines in the sun.

This work is iterative, intended to be exhibited/screened in a variety of spaces, and accompanied by in-depth research, as a means to reflect on the process of cross-cultural collaborative filmmaking, and more specifically the cultural, political and artistic space we occupy as a creative team. Over the course of 2021, Afifah Tasya and I conducted a series of interviews with relevant activists, academics, archivists and artists. The ideas and experiences we discussed and learnt about in these interviews, all of which can be read on Sipakatuo's website, have informed the creative process and shaped our approach to collaboration and co-creation.

Every video has been either broadcast on local television through the DSTV network or published on their YouTube channel, then re-arranged and constructed by Chris Cochrane-Friedrich and Wahyu Al Mardhani. The film is structured in a pattern of contained events and sequences, alternating between private and public, offering a sensorial overview of Torajan lifestyles, locations and practices. These sequences, drawn entirely from the DSTV archives, presented together propose the construction of a shared collective memory. There is such a wealth of material in the DSTV archive, which often had multiple cameras filming one event at the same time. This gave us the idea to use 4 screens, rather than just one, in order to explore the idea of a multiplicity of experiences that DSTV captures so well. 4 channels on 4 screens allows us to embrace the vastness of the DSTV video archive, whilst encouraging the free formation of neural pathways and constructed meanings in audience members. The images are then accompanied by bilingual (Indonesian and English) intertitles drawn from interviews conducted with Victor Konda, the founder and manager of DSTV, to anchor the practice of filming in one individual's experience of it. As such all circles the moon & dirt shines in the sun is intended as a multi-faceted emotional and quasi-historical topography of DSTV’s work over the last 15 years, made up of over 4,000 separate clips and guided by the experiences of its leader.

This work is a milestone for Dogmilk, as it marks the completion of our first feature film. We’d love to see you all there to celebrate with us!  

Duration: 91 mins

Screening sessions: Saturday 11th December @ 5pm & 8pm;
Sunday 12th December @ 2.30pm, 5pm & 8pm

Ticket prices: $15 full price, $10 concession

Ticketing page

Facebook event page

Disclaimer:

This work includes images of a person who has passed away and their body’s preparation for a funeral ceremony.
Some viewers may find this footage distressing.

Dogmilk / Sipakatuo bio:

Dogmilk Films is an independent filmmaking collective with members in Naarm/Birrarung Ga (Melbourne)
and Makassar (Indonesia) dedicated to the promotion and production of alternative and ambitious cinema.
The Sipakatuo project aims to connect screen and sound practitioners between Australia and Indonesia,
building a sustainable creative bridge between the two communities.

Much of the work for these pieces was carried out on the unceded lands of the Arrernte people
and those of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
We would like to extend our respect and gratitude to elders past and present of these peoples,
as well as to First Nations people everywhere. The content of this moving image work
concerns the lives, culture, history and lands of Toraja in South Sulawesi.
The artists would like to express their deepest respect and gratitude to Torajan communities around the world.