Guardians of Paradise

Like many islands and remote communities, Christmas Island (CI) is losing its youth.
The lack of opportunities, physical isolation and economic hardship leads most young people to leave their community after high school, slowly threatening ‘extinction’ of the community and its unique way of life. Australia faces this challenge more broadly in many of its remote communities, which are cut off from many services and opportunities for development. These communities are a big part of Australia’s identity. A part which would be lost by answering the continuous decline of remote life with indifference. This film aims to connect the Australian public with a part of its story they are barely aware of, and find out how the young minds in our most remote places may be empowered to keep those same places alive.

My vision is for the Christmas Island story to inspire more active engagement, involvement and empowerment of rural communities and young people in them. Both the communities themselves as well as the general public should feel moved by this story to advocate for young people’s and provide spaces for their unique ways of solving the issues of tomorrow. More broadly, I hope to connect the Australian public with its rural and remote communities more directly. I aim to (a) help Australians see the beauty of life in a remote community, (b) highlight the important role they play for our national identity and (c) give them an opportunity to advocate for their support, either through their vote in an upcoming election or through visiting those communities directly.

For the three protagonists of this story, the film provides an opportunity for reflection on their aspirations and potential role in the community. I hope for them to become more actively engaged in empowering other young people in the process. For other young people on the island and in other remote communities, watching the film will give them pride in their identity and heritage, and might entice them to become more involved in their communities. Lastly, I hope for the visibility in front of the Australian public to create an indirect change for communities, as Australians will learn to consider our remote communities as part of our identity. This leads them then to act and vote with slightly more awareness and consideration for those communities.

I lived on Christmas Island for three months in 2023, working closely with the National Parks service and also the local school. At the time, I filmed a preliminary doc-style video, interviewing senior islanders on their views on the past and future of the island. Since then I have remained close contact with the CI Shire, and their Youth Council, who are very supportive of the project and are already setting up meetings with the high school students to help me select potential protagonists for the story. I am also still in close contact with the National Park, school and local dive centre. The community is small, and I know almost everyone on the island personally to some degree. As so far all media attention has been focused on the crab migration or the detention centre, the island is excited to have a story with a focus on community.

The best way to engage with our remote communities is to visit them, and some of them are stunning places. At the end of the film, I plan to direct audiences to the official government mapping tool for community classification, and encourage them to visit a community in the remoteness classification 6 or 7, with the goal of shifting their mindset as to what life in most of Australia looks like.

My second on-screen prompt is simply to look at the young people around them, and having a chat on that same day about how their hopes can be enabled.