Ringtone

Mobile Phones in a an Australian Indigenous Community

In a world where everyone has a mobile phone, a personalised ringtone can say a lot about you.

Welcome to the once-remote Aboriginal community of Gapuwiyak in northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, where individual ringtones reveal rich insights into lives of the Yolngu people.

From ancestral clan songs, animal calls and birdsongs to hip hop artists and gospel tunes, a Yolngu ringtone always comes with a great story. It might be the music a young woman dances to in a city nightclub, or a clan song invoking memories of ancestors and country.

Yolngu people are renowned as first-rate storytellers with a keen sense of humour. In Ringtone, various individuals talk directly to camera as they reveal the advantages and perils of their new connectivity.

Made collaboratively by Miyarrka Media, a new media arts collective of Indigenous and non-Indigenous filmmakers, Ringtone is a beautiful, funny and surprising film about the place of mobile phones in a contemporary Australian Indigenous community