Zach's Ceremony

I saw a great little documentary film last Friday night called 'Zach's Ceremony' and the bonus was that two of the main stars of the film were there at the cinema for a Q&A after the film.

Zach and Alec Doomadgee at
the Q&A Friday night

I had never heard of this film until a few weeks ago when I picked up a flier when I went to see a one-off screening of '2001: A Space Odyssey' with my oldest boy.
This was the cinema that I first saw '2001' when I was about ten years old when I got my grandmother to take me to it.
As a ten-year-old I came out scratching my head over Kubrick's classic, but I grew to love it as I grew older.
When I picked up the flier for 'Zach's Ceremony' and saw the stars of the film were going to be there I thought it would be interesting to go, as I knew nothing about Zach and Alec before the night of the screening.

The screening of 'Zach's Ceremony' was in cinema 4, the red room, which kind of reminded me of the space station in the '2001' movie with its trippy red seats.

I said it was a trippy cinema, even my
iPhone camera was tripping out:-)

The red chairs in '2001: A Space Odyssey'

Aboriginal astronomy the star of Dreamtime stories
"For the next couple of months, get away from the city lights, look up to the stars, and you might just be able to spot an emu in the sky.
According to Aboriginal legend, emus were creator spirits that used to fly and look over the land.
To spot the emu, look south to the Southern Cross; the dark cloud between the stars is the head, while the neck, body and legs are formed from dust lanes stretching across the Milky Way.
Physics student and Sydney Observatory guide Kirsten Banks said most Aboriginal tribes told the story of the emu in the sky.
Ms Banks is in her third year at the University of NSW and has aspirations to study the formation of stars once she graduates.
She is descended from the Wiradjuri people but only delved into her ancestry after seeing an Indigenous map of Australia hanging in the entrance of the Observatory."

Eora Nation 44 - Spot the emu in the sky

I thought it was ironic that the film was distributed by Umbrella Films and on the week it was shown Cyclone Debbie had just hit Queensland and what was left of the cyclone had moved down the coast Brisbane's way (where the screening was) and caused serve flooding down this end of Queensland and northern New South Wales.

Gold Coast house washed away minutes after family rescued from floods

But the real weird thing on the night that blew me away was in the Q&A Alec told the audience that he used to live in a house in Brisbane (population about 2 million) and used to do a smoking ceremony to clear away the spirits from his house, because he lived across the road from a funeral home in the suburb that I too lived in for the first 20 years of my life, and where my mother, brother and sister still live ... and where my father's ashes are scattered under a tree in the backyard.
I knew that there couldn't be too many funeral homes in that suburb, but I wasn't sure, so I met Alec in the foyer afterwards to ask him which funeral home it was and sure enough it was the funeral home pretty much literally within a stone's throw from where I grew up.
In fact, I used to go to school with the kid that lived in the back of that same funeral home.
His parents ran the funeral home, and he would often tell me how he'd watch scary movies late at night on TV and be spooked because there were dead bodies stored not far away.
I had a good chat with Alec telling him about going to school with the kid who lived in the funeral home and the street where I lived, which was a short walk from Alec's house.
I had no idea Alec had ever lived in Brisbane, until after the screening.
Talk about a small world.

Rob Thomas Apologises For Making Racist Joke About Indigenous Australians At Melbourne Show
Alec also told me how after Rob Thomas made a joke about Indigenous Australians and drinking at Rob's Melbourne concert that Alec offered to put on a private screening of 'Zach's Ceremony' at the Schonell cinema in Brisbane for Rob if he wanted to watch the film, which was an offer Rob took up, bringing along a few of his crew for the private screening.
Alec said Rob had a lot of good Indigenous mates now and keeps in touch, so it was probably a good thing in a way, as a lot of lessons have been learned and a lot of respect gained from the incident.
I notice on Wikipedia that Rob was born on Valentine's Day (Feb 14th) the same day my sister celebrates her birthday, too.

Oddly enough, I see a Werner Hertog film called 'Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World' is playing at the Schonell cinema and commenced screening the night before 'Zach's Ceremony' screened in Brisbane.

 Hmm ... small and synchromystic world it seems.
Matchbox Twenty - How Far We've Come [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

You might want to watch the original 'Matchbox Twenty' video in the link above this video, as it really is eerie, not that I believe the world is coming to an end, but I feel there are hard years ahead, and for some of us, the world will seem to be coming to an end.

I think films like 'Zach's Ceremony' are very mind expanding to others outside of that culture (which is like 99.9% of the world) and we need to look with respect on other cultures besides our own, so we can all understand each other a bit better in a bid to get along.
We even need to look at our own cultures and see what is good and bad within our own cultures and question why we do the things we do.
I'm glad I made the effort to go out to the cinema Friday night and watch the film Alec and Zach made, even though I nearly didn't go, because I was feeling run down and just felt like staying home and watching the football on TV and having an early night.
But that same little voice that makes me get up out of bed in the morning when the alarm goes off when I just want to go back to sleep told me I should go.
I wasn't even going to book a ticket over the internet, I was just going to turn up at the cinema and buy a ticket, because my experience in the past at these types of events was there was always empty seats somewhere in the cinema, so it was a pretty safe bet that you'd be able to buy a ticket at the box office.
That same little voice told me I had better buy a ticket online just in case, so I did and good thing I did, too, because when I got to the cinema the event was sold out and they were turning people away. 
So, I guess...

Even though we had walked the same paths before.
So, go see 'Zach's Ceremony' and tell 'em Darren sent you, and if you don't like the film, you can always blame me, I'm used to being a scapegoat ... but I think you'll get a little mind expansion from it either way.

China plans to build new city nearly
 three times the size of New York

Walking in Two Worlds
"Junior Dirdi dreams of becoming a Kakadu ranger, like his grandfather.

But to become the strong Aboriginal leader his family sees in him, he's leaving his beloved homeland behind."