The traditional Indigenous protocol of not naming or viewing the image of a dead person is widely accepted. But it was resisted fiercely by the late Banjima elder, Maitland Parker. For Parker wanted his story and that of his poisoned Country in WA’s Pilbara to be known and acted on. Never having been a miner, Parker was nevertheless a victim of the notorious blue asbestos mine at Wittenoon, dying of mesothelioma in 2024, having filmed his phlegmatic decline over several years.

Taking the non-Indigenous director Yaara Bou Melhem into his life, we’re introduced to Parker in an all-over white body suit and face mask, harshly describing his return to an idyllic waterhole that had been a place of happy childhood memories. All around him are the 3 million tonnes of asbestos tailings at 13 different hillside sites that have lain there black and menacing for 20 years, just waiting to be blown or washed on to Banjima Country. Because of this lack of control, neighbouring Mulga Downs Station is locked off, festooned with warning signs. Which is a tragedy for Parker. For, this timeless piece of Banjima yurlu was also the place where many Banjima worked, were birthed and buried. Maitland is determined to get back there.

Sadly, he never makes it. But the pressure eventually tells on authorities, and a seven car procession of his family does return, able to share locations and stories, especially those surrounding the women’s birthing tree.

The film captures the beauty of this Country as seen by the Banjima – red dirt, spinifex as far as the eye can see, gorges, rocks and secret waterholes, overlooked by a magical full-moon for Maitland’s interment. Riding decorously with his brother through this land, the old men are clearly reliving their cattle driving days. Later in life, Maitland became the first Aboriginal ranger at Karajini National Park.

The film also contextualises the history of Wittenoon – its discovery by none other than Lang Hancock, who sold on to CSR as he discovered the iron ore that also sits on Banjima Country. His daughter, BHP and Rio Tinto are still exploiting that and fighting a long-standing Land Rights claim, which is being run, far away from that Country in an air-conditioned office in Perth. Somehow, between medical treatments that fail to hold back his disease, Parker attends claim meetings and even speaks on Zoom to a UN committee that needs to know it’s not just miners that get incurable lung cancer.

He was a fighter, like the amazing Martu guys nearby, back in the 1940s, who organised the first station walk-off by Pilbara station workers. Coincidentally, I reviewed a remastered 1980s documentary about that recently.

Yurlu – Country is up for a documentary award at the Sydney Film Festival and is produced by Illuminate Films