Northern Pictures has formed a new joint venture with First Nations creatives Benny Eggmolesse and Scott Wilson – Yoowarni Productions.
Eggmolesse (Mbarbaram) and Scott Wilson (Gooniyandi), of Ice Cream Productions, have the majority stake in the company, which aims to co-create content with an Indigenous perspective.
Yoowarni means “one” in Gooniyandi language, and is used to express unity and the integration of two worlds.
Northern Pictures first came across Eggmolesse, a comedian, via Instagram – co-head of scripted development Darren Ashton’s daughter followed him and thought he was funny. After meeting with him, Northern’s head of kids and scripted Catherine Nebauer quickly found he “had some fantastic stories that we just felt really deserved to be told”.
After starting work with Ice Cream on one project with an eye to another, Nebauer, Northern Pictures managing director Peter Anderson and general counsel Page Henty saw the opportunity to do something deeper.
“[We thought] rather than just work on a singular project or project by project, let’s really state our intention,” Nebauer tells IF.
“What we’re trying to do with Yoowarni is call it the ‘scaffold’; bringing support and experience, nurturing and mentoring to their creative – of which it’s in spades, it’s just extraordinary.”
Eggmolesse and Wilson started Ice Cream Productions in 2018, bonding over a love of comics, movies and TV, and a desire to create innovative and fresh content that showcases First Nations culture – with comedy at its grassroots.
Speaking to IF, Eggmolesse notes there are so many First Nations stories that haven’t been told yet.
“We focus on certain aspects of history. But there’s a lot about our culture that hasn’t really been explored, brought to the table or discussed even.”
Wilson agrees, stating they have always aimed not to be boxed in and to create content without boundaries.
“Especially when we’re looking at superheroes and sci-fi and those kind of stories; it’s deeply embedded within the culture and what The Dreaming is. It plays around with science when it comes time and space, and relativity... It lends itself to a lot of content.”
Both are passionate about First Nations representation and capacity building, and to see de-identified roles.
“One of the biggest things that I believe in is one day having an Aboriginal person playing a superhero, but he’s not an ‘Aboriginal person playing superhero’ – he’s a superhero that’s saving the planet. We don’t look at him as Aboriginal; we look at him as a superhero that everyone can connect to,” Wilson says.
From the early stages of working with Northern Pictures, Eggmolesse was impressed by the fact they were “willing to change the way they do things to accommodate our mob” and also saw opportunity to create something bigger.
“Scotty and I are very passionate about Indigenous participation in film and entertainment. What’s really unique and rare – that you don’t really find often – is an organisation who would say ‘yes’. They would listen to our mob and our voice and go, ‘Yes, let’s do that’.
“We knew straight away: these are our brothers and sisters. We started talking and said, ‘Let’s form an Aboriginal company and really kick some goals with it.'”
Yoowarni is currently developing a number of projects.
One is horror comedy series Paranormal Blacktivity, which is in development with NITV, created by Eggmolesse and fellow Canberrian Jacob Keed.
It follows rival siblings must team up to investigate bloody murders, strange disappearances and super weird stuff they suspect are caused by ancient Aboriginal monsters, woken by an imbalance in the natural world. Screen Canberra supported project with development funding in 2020.
“We’ve spent a lot of time seeing werewolves and vampires… quite European based creatures. But we have our own monsters, our own things that we’re afraid of in the dark. We wanted to introduce Australian TV to that and show them a suite of scary and terrifying monsters that we have feared and told stories about since time began,” Eggmolesse says of the project.
Another key project is a family comedy, loosely based on Eggmolesse’s family.
“My family’s not anyone’s special, but I guess they do represent most Aboriginal families. Everyone’s wild and woolly and everyone’s flawed. But when you pull together, it’s your mob still.”
Yoowarni will be Eggmolesse and WIlson’s flagship going forward, but they will still develop certain projects under Ice Cream Productions. This includes Wilson’s comic book range of Aboriginal superheroes – “the Indigiverse”, with the first edition, Dark Heart, recently released in limited edition print at Supernova Comic-Con in Perth.
Broadly, Wilson hopes Yoowarni will allow knowledge transfer from Northern Pictures to build the capacity of First Nations creatives. He hopes to see new settings on screen, and to see Aboriginal culture and stories showcased with the justice it deserves.
“The more representation, the more impact we have, especially with shifting the views and perspectives on Aboriginal people.”
Eggmolesse adds that he would like other production companies to think about how they involve First Nations creatives in storytelling.
“Northern Pictures set up another company with us. That’s a massive step. That’s not: ‘Let’s take your ideas and share ownership’. It’s ‘Let’s own something together and build something.’ That’s something to take note of.”
Wilson similarly gives a shout out to Northern Pictures for also including First Nations creatives in writers rooms when the content is not specifically about First Nations subjects or characters.
“To be able to have those opportunities to give our creativity… has just been a positive and amazing journey. It’d just be so great for the wider industry to start looking at opportunities where ‘I’m getting this Aboriginal writer in, not to write an Aboriginal role, but to use them because their creativity and their value is so important, and they are deadly’.
“We work with mob that are deadly, not because they’re Aboriginal. They’re driven and passionate and I think that’s how this all came about. Northern Pictures are passion-driven people that met with other passion-driven people and we’re creating a passion-driven future.”