At the Adelaide Festival in March, the World Premiere of MY NAME IS GULPILIL was a momentous and emotional cinema experience. The ailing David Gulpilil walked the red carpet and introduced the film to an electric standing ovation from the sold-out theatre of 1500, with The Guardian calling the film “sublime, humane, elegant…an unforgettable film. 5 STARS”.
Now the rest of Australia can be enthralled by MY NAME IS GULPILIL, in cinemas nationally from May 27. Looking back over a 50-year screen career that has unquestionably changed the face of Australian Cinema, Gulpilil, now terminally ill, generously shares his own story with us. And for the first time, that story is told entirely in his own words.
Gulpilil is the only actor to appear in both of the two highest-grossing Australian films of all time, Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Australia (2008). He is known throughout the world for his unforgettable performances and enigmatic screen presence – from his breakthrough in Walkabout (1971) to films including Storm Boy (1976), Mad Dog Morgan (1976), The Last Wave (1977), The Tracker (2002), Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), The Proposition (2005) and his Cannes Best Actor award winning role in Rolf de Heer’s Charlie’s Country (2013).
In My Name is Gulpilil, David holds the camera figuratively in the palm of his hand. He performs directly for whoever might be out there in the future looking at him, to what is for him his final audience. He talks about what it is to stare down death, and what it was to live a life such as he did, a dizzying mix of traditional Aboriginal ways and modern Hollywood excess, and everything in between. It is pure, unmediated and unvarnished David Gulpilil, finally able to say in a film exactly what he wants to say.
But life interferes with David’s march towards his personal end…in his words, “I should have been dead long time ago!” Despite the diagnoses and the prognostications of finality, birthdays pass and David resolutely refuses to die. In this, his likely final film (although it may not be), the great Australian actor David Gulpilil shows what a survivor he is, and how he came to be the living legend we know him to be.
Directed by Molly Reynolds (Another Country and 12 Canoes) and produced by Rolf de Heer, Peter Djigirr, David Gulpilil and Molly Reynolds.
My Name is Gulpilil is a Vertigo Production produced and filmed on Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna and Andyamathana Lands. It is produced with the assistance of the Adelaide Film Festival, financed with the assistance of the South Australian Film Corporation and Australian Broadcasting Corporation and filmed with the assistance of Screen Australia. Special thanks to our treasured cultural institution, the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
IN CINEMAS nationally May 27, 2021 through ABCG Film I Rating: M I Run Time: 101mins
To be in the running to win one of the double passes send an email to with “My Name is Gulpilil ” in the subject line. Please include your best postal address. QLD addresses only. One entry per person. No entries via third party sites. Comp closes May 27, 2021.
