Mark Jones is a crocodile handling, campaign building, award-winning Australian film-maker. He has been living and working extensively in the Kimberley for nearly 30 years, since unexpectedly becoming a novice camera operator with revered adventure film maker Malcolm Douglas. Mark develops stories and films with deep underlying messages that reflect this very special part of the world, and its increasingly important part in where we go from here as a society and civilisation. And all that is coming out in both his films and activism to profound effect.

Mark has helped lead one of the most formative and successful campaigns in Australian history. And he’s collaborated with some of the greats in Australian film and television, also producing for some of the larger international TV broadcasters including the BBC, and NHK in Japan. The WA State Library will archive his collection in 2022.

Most recently, Mark directed The Serpent’s Tale, the spectacular half-hour film produced in collaboration with the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council, that Anne Poelina and I talked about in episode 84. Now he’s onto making the epic and vital Stories in Stone, collaborating with other previous guests on this podcast like Lynne Kelly (ep 92) and Albert Wiggan (ep 34). It’s the culmination of a life’s work to date, on what science and traditional knowledge are showing us, about the messages left by our ancient ancestors for future generations.

This is the first in a series of episodes on-location in the Kimberley – a region often described as one of the last great remaining wildernesses left on the planet. To the Original people, as the Stories in Stone blurb puts it, it’s seen as ‘Country’, a vast Cultural landscape where story, song, geography and art meld into an epic story with no beginning… and no end.

This conversation was recorded by the mud flats of Roebuck Bay in Broome, on 2 August 2021.

Title slide: Mark Jones (supplied). You can see a selection of spectacular photographs by Mark on the episode website.

Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.

The tune accompanying the introduction is by Jeremiah Johnson.

Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

Find more:
Mark Jones' website

The Serpent’s Tale trailer (stay tuned to the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council for more on the launch of the film on the festival circuit soon – and note there’ll be a community screening in Derby, Western Australia on 9 October 2021).

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