Desert Heart (ATOM Study Guide)

Desert Heart (David Batty and Jeni McMahon, 2007) is a 27-minute documentary tracing the journey of a group of Aboriginal people back to the traditional land they were forced to leave four decades earlier.

The elders take with them a young man who is a developing artist. They are seeing their land for the last time, he is seeing it for the first time. Both respond to the land emotionally, and also artistically.

The film shows the journey, and in doing so provides a small reality that is part of the bigger picture of remote Indigenous communities facing change to their traditional culture.