Red Sands Blue Seas

The Australian town of Hermannsburg is located in the central desert. Despite the arrival of Lutheran converts, the resident aboriginals kept passing down their traditional dreaming stories. After aboriginal painter Albert Namatjira introduced water colour paint there, the mythological figures could also be painted, something his granddaughter is still doing. But she does so on vases, because a few years ago the New York-based Naomi Sharp started a workshop in Hermannsburg teaching the aboriginals the ropes of pottery-making. Today their pots with colourful paintings sell like wildfire in Australian galleries. In the film four women, who have never before left the red earth, take part in a cultural exchange programme with Lombok. The aboriginal and Sasak women cannot communicate directly, but they are not very sympathetic towards each other. The grass, the aboriginals conclude, is too green on Lombok. They do not feel happy until they go back home. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)