In My Blood It Runs

10-year-old Dujuan, a child healer, hunter and speaker of two Indigenous languages struggles mightily to navigate between two starkly different worlds - his First Nations family and the white-dominated Australian educational system that has little regard for his culture or language. At school, Dujuan ‘acts out’ and gets suspended; at home, his loving grandmother Carol fights to give him a strong Arrernte education, alongside his western one. Meanwhile, Dujuan learns more about his gifts as a healer and, at times, playfully takes charge of the camera. Set in the starkly beautiful Northern Territory of Australia, the film is by turns sad, joyous, inspiring and spiritual. Director Maya Newell brilliantly captures the fleeting, searching moments of youth while revealing the broader forces of history and racism that can control people’s fate. (AFI Docs)