The run from White Cliffs to Wilcannia is a quick 100 km down the old Cobb & Co route. In its heyday, Wilcannia was a major inland port to the central and far western plains of NSW. Huge river steamers would bring supplies and people in, and take wool and wheat out. With Echuca, Deniliquin and Hay, it serviced the boom times of the wool and wheat industries, as well as the gold, opal and metal mining through the whole region. But that was when the Darling was a river that actually flowed. Now it’s not much more than a sad, almost stagnant, green mozzie-blown swamp. You can’t help but think that if this river flowed again then life could flow with it, back into towns like Wilcannia.

This town has a reputation that goes with all towns with high unemployment and large Indigenous populations. On the day we arrive it seems to be living up to its reputation. It’s court day, and a busy one. There are groups of blackfellas young and old around town, on the grog, and the mood is not good. Local councillors admit that court day is always a sad day in town. But it’s not a bad day.

The Tracker and its tale of natural justice – full of the pain of ignorance, the strange humour of desperation, the healing nature of contrition and the power of an open heart – is the perfect film for Wilcannia this year.

By the time the sun is setting and our screen is back up in the park for this year’s Big Screen outing, all you can hear is the yelping and laughter of the local kids as they play touch footy around us. They are having a hoot of a time. As soon as we get the music going, more kids wander in. As the sun goes down there are about 60 or so kids hanging round waiting for the film to start. Last year we ran Jedda, and experience tells me that the kids will run around all night in front of the screen, with only a few of the older ones settling to actually watch the film all the way through. The younger ones would stop as a mob here and there for 10 minutes or so when something in particular caught their attention. But their energy of play added a sense of carnival and community to the whole night. I suspect the same will happen again this year. Their parents and elders will sit behind us in their cars or under the trees, coming and leaving quietly.

But this year is different. Sure, as we start up it takes the kids a while to settle, but once the film gets going every single one of them, from five to fifteen years old, sits entranced in front of the screen, almost to the very end. If one dares move, there’s a yell from behind us: “Sit down and watch the movie!” The feeling I have watching this happen is one of great privilege. To take this difficult, beautiful film, with its haunting Archie Roach soundtrack into a town like Wilcannia, and to have all these children and some of their elders sit transfixed, puts me and Big Screen at a place which is rare and real at the same time. It’s at moments like these that I actually feel we are really doing something that counts.

After the film one of the mothers, Rosalyn Johnson, comes up to tell me that she’s from where the film was shot, up around Arkaroola and Nepabunna in South Australia. She tells me that the Johnsons are still up there, and that her grandmother Gertie is still there too. I let her know that we will be screening The Tracker in Nepabunna in early June, and she asks me to say hello to her “granma” for her.

This night is a fantastic lead up to the night following, where we will screen at the minimum security prison in Ivanhoe. Its population of 41 is 95 per cent Indigenous, and we’ll screen The Tracker there as well. I joke about a captive audience but still, I wonder how we will go!