The Land Bridge

Documentary

In this engaging film, experts wind the clock back 40,000 years to investigate the ancient landscape and deep human history of the Bass Strait land bridge.

Synopsis

This documentary takes us on a journey from the Bass Strait seafloor which was once a vast grassy plain on which people, animals and plants lived, to the islands and coastal places of the Bass Strait which were once hilltops of a now-submerged ice age landscape.

Through the perspectives of marine scientists, wildlife biologists, paleoecologists, Country rangers and cultural custodians, the film explores what we know of the ancient Bassian Plain, how we know it, and how First Peoples remain culturally connected to those long past times.

Between about 43,000 and about 14,000 years ago, during the last ice age when sea-levels were lower, a land bridge connected Lutruwita/Tasmania to mainland Australia.

The land bridge now lies 60 metres under the notoriously treacherous sea waters of the Bass Strait in southeastern Australia.

Cultural knowledge and song lines connected to the land bridge are held within First Nations communities.

Today, First Nations custodians and multi-disciplinary teams of researchers are working to understand this deep past.

As the world grapples with climate change, warming oceans, and associated sea level rise, this film reminds us how much we can learn from our deep human story.

How to screen the film

The film is freely available to screen and share via the Land Bridge documentary on Vimeo.

If you would like a screening copy to screen or project at a non-commercial community event in a cinema, theatre or hall, please contact the producers.

Film information

Title: The Land Bridge

Year Produced: 2024

Runtime: 24 minutes

Country: Australia

Type: Documentary

Genre: Science & Nature, History, First Nations

Production Company: Wind & Sky Productions

Director: Jary Nemo

Producers: Jary Nemo & Lucinda Horrocks

Writer: Jary Nemo

Featuring: Colin J Hughes, Buck (Brendan) Brown, Simon Haberle, Chris Johnson, Fiona Maher, Neville Barrett, Madeleine Bessell-Koprek, Wayne Thorpe, and the voice of Jillian Mundy.

Copyright information

This film has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence.

You are free to share, show and screen the film for non-commercial and educational purposes so long as you do not modify, remix or adapt the work.

For more information about the CC-BY-NC-ND licence visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed 

Copyright © Wind & Sky Productions 2024