A Reflection on Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time

Janet Galbraith

 

Abstract: Janet Galbraith appears in the film Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (Behrouz Boochani and Arash Kamali Sarvestani, 2017) and was also instrumental in facilitating the filmmaking process. She is the only Australian featured in the movie and used her privileges as a citizen to smuggle some significant footage from Manus Island to Australia where it was uploaded for codirector Kamali Sarvestani to access. In this paper, Galbraith recounts important features of the filmmaking process by employing different genres and styles of writing: she offers recollections of her time collaborating with Boochani, actors and supporters; her interpretation of the significance of the film; and critical analysis of Manus Island’s colonial history and Australia’s neocolonial machinations. What Galbraith produces here foregrounds issues such as gender, race, privilege and the various structural forms of oppression and exclusion limiting Boochani’s resistance and creative work.