Yaara Bou Melhem’s Yurlu | Country, Stefan Andrews’ White Rock, and Sukundimi Walks Before Me are the newest projects chosen to receive pro bono impact campaign support via Documentary Australia’s Environmental Accelerator Impact Program.
Now in its third year, the program supports documentaries to increase awareness and accelerate action on pressing environmental issues by assisting with the design of impact strategies, impact campaign implementation and fundraising, evaluation frameworks and the analysis of impact metrics, and presenting impact screenings and events.
Of the 2025 cohort, Yurlu | Country follows late Banjima Elder Maitland Parker’s fight for the rehabilitation of his homelands from asbestos contamination; White Rock features Damon Gameau uncovering the explosion of long-spined sea urchins devastating Australia’s kelp forests; and Sukundimi Walks Before Me centres on Manu Peni and children of Papua New Guinea’s Sepik River campaigning to stop a large-scale gold and copper mine, which risks extracting, eroding and polluting the river.
They follow in the footsteps of previous accelerator projects, Greenhouse By Joost, Rachel’s Farm, The Giants, Delikado, Climate Changers, and Stay Tuned To Our Planet.
Documentary Australia impact director and environmental accelerator program lead
Stephanie King said the organisation was looking forward to working with three new film teams to “maximise the impact of such critical environmental stories”.
“We are now midway through the ‘critical decade’ for tackling climate change – it has never been more urgent that we support and leverage environmental storytelling to move audiences from awareness to action,” she said.
Find more information about the three projects below:
Yurlu | Country
Feature documentary
Director/Producer: Yaara Bou Melhem
Co-Writer/Executive Producer: Maitland Parker
Executive Producer: Chris Kamen
Co-Producers: James Saunders, Tom Bannigan
Impact Producer: Ann Megalla
A vivid ode to Country and an intimate portrait of an Aboriginal elder’s final year as he strives to preserve his culture and heal his homeland, scarred by the largest contaminated site in the Southern Hemisphere. The late Banjima Elder, Maitland Parker, called his Yurlu (lands) “Poison Country” – a haunting truth he carried in his body, as he too fell to its toxic legacy. Banjima Country lies within the remote red gorges of Western Australia’s Pilbara, scarred by the Wittenoom asbestos mines which dumped millions of tons of lethal asbestos tailings. In a journey imbued with legacy, Maitland’s fight to clean up his lands will inspire and catalyse.
White Rock
Documentary short
Director: Stefan Andrews
Producer: Dr Scott Bennett
Presenter: Damon Gameau
Impact Producers: Sahira Bell and Hillarey Jones
Award-winning filmmaker Damon Gameau embarks on a journey to expose a hidden consequence of the climate crisis – the explosion of long-spined sea urchins that are devastating Australia’s kelp forests. Weaving together insights from Traditional Owners, firsthand accounts from fishers, and lessons learned from emerging industries, Damon discovers that a solution to this crisis not only exists, but exemplifies how ecological restoration can go hand in hand with economic opportunity – a true-blue, nature positive approach.
Sukundimi Walks Before Me
Feature documentary
Produced by Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions and Walking Fish Productions
The Sepik River is the mother line for Papua New Guinea communities. She winds through mountains and rainforests, the crucial vertebrae connecting and supporting the rare biodiversity and spiritual consciousness of the region. But her livelihood and her communities are threatened by the proposal of a copper-gold mine being built at her headwaters, which risks extracting, eroding, and polluting an environment that has been sustained by her for millennia. The children of this river, led by Manu Peni, create a grassroots campaign to stop the mine from being built, resisting the forces of colonial bureaucracy and Western narratives of ‘development’ by invoking Indigenous and ancestral knowledge. Sukundimi Walks Before Me explores this existential fight through an impressionistic and lyrical exploration of existence, resistance, and life along the mother river.