Despite its reputation, boarded up shop fronts and imposing corner pub with bricked in windows and meshed doors, Wilcannia is a very pretty town full of wonderful old sandstone buildings and corrugated iron houses (Of course the locals look at me like I'm an idiot when I say how pretty the town is!) Like any small country town it's quiet, but there are kids all over the place on bikes, and locals sitting in the park having a beer and a yarn. They are all Aboriginal; the only Europeans I see, apart from Paul, are in cars.

When James Giddey, the West Darling Regional Arts Development Officer and I return two days later to set the screening up, we decide to move out of the community hall, which is a bit of a bunker, and into the memorial park by the river. It's a hot day - 37 degrees - and despite looming storms coming in across the western desert, the park is the perfect place. To do this we have to get permission from Council on a Sunday! “No wuckers mate, I'll just give the GM a call.” And it's done.

Big Screen is now in true 'travelling picture show' mode. We arrive with the screen and projector in the back of the car. Rigging the screen - an ingenious design built by a Menindee local - is a simple affair, made simpler with the help of Richard, a local man who wanders over to find out what time the screenings start. He's particularly interested because he says Rosalie Kunoth is his mother; he stays and helps. The son of Rosalie Kunoth is rigging the screen so we can show a documentary about his mum! When we're done, Richard wonders off. I don't know if he came back to see the film. I hope he was sitting somewhere with his people spread through the park later.

The screen is up and an hour later a storm comes through and blows it down. The first rain in six months: the headline in next week's Wilcannia News will be 'Big Screen breaks drought'.

We get the screen back up and wait for the rain to pass, which it does. The projector sits on the back roof of James' station wagon with a tarp over it just in case it spits again. We're playing local music and a dozen or so kids are line dancing to their shadows in front the screen. The older boys on their bikes are wizzing round the park, and a few elders and adults are setting up on seats dotted all over. A few cars are parked 'drive-in' mode behind us.

As the sun sets, up goes Jedda and everyone settles. On a Sunday night in Wilcannia there are about 70 or so locals, all Aboriginal except for a local nun, a nurse, James and I, and two American tourists.

Through the film the boys come and go but all the older girls sit and watch.

Afterwards we run Rosalie's Journey and just about all the kids leave, but all the adults stay, which is fantastic, because Rosalie's Journey is a wonderful documentary, in language, very personal and very revealing of what it meant to this now wizened elder to have played the lead in Chauvel's classic.

We had planned to run One Perfect Day as well, but no one is really that interested. It was really only the 'blackfella' film Wilcannia wanted to see, and that done, everyone wandered off home.

I look forward to being back in Wilcannia, a wonderful town with great community; and great pie and chips at the servo, the only restaurant in town!