Aussie rules football and music festival held in the remote red desert

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Deep in the heart of western Australia’s remote Pilbara region, a group of Indigenous desert communities are competing in an annual Aussie rules football tournament. The Martu Festival is being held in Punmu, 1,300 kilometres north-east of Perth.

Transcript

00:00Well, we've come to the final and most exciting day of the Mardu Festival.

00:07Every year we get teams comprising 10 communities from across the Pilbara and the Western Desert

00:12versing each other in their favourite game, footy.

00:14This is not your average footy field.

00:16There's no lush green lawns in place here playing on the signature Pilbara red dirt.

00:22The boundary lines are marked in flower and most of the people are playing barefoot.

00:26So from speaking with some of the players throughout the week, they have been picking

00:29up a few scratches and scrapes, but they say that that's all part of what makes this festival

00:34so unique.

00:36Now, the boys have been playing footy.

00:38The girls, their sport has been softball.

00:40Now that did wrap up yesterday.

00:43The remote town of Nalagain was the winner again there, defeating hosts Punmu in the final.

00:49So for both sports, there have been representatives from each of the respective state associations

00:55that have travelled to Punmu this week, keeping an eye out for the next rising stars in both

01:01sports.

01:02And we do understand from the events organisers that in the coming weeks, any players that

01:06have caught the eye of those talent scouts will be informed and they will have a chance

01:09to further their careers in Perth.

01:12Now, an interesting thing about the Mardu people is this was one of the last groups to make

01:16contact with European civilisation which happened in the 1950s and as a result, the connection

01:22to their traditional culture is still very strong, that the language is still spoken widely

01:27and customs that have been practised for tens of thousands of years are still practised

01:31today.

01:33One of the footy players that we've spoken to this week and he's also working at the festival

01:38now is Sterling Flatt, let's have a listen now to him talking about what he loves most

01:43about the festival.

01:44I could see myself doing this for a very long time, getting to know more community kids and

01:50show them, you know, there's a way, there's a better way than all the negative effects in

01:54life and, you know, show them that they could have a better future.

01:58Seeing a smile on their face every day, just put a smile on my face.

02:01So hopefully I'll try and make them smile every day.

02:04Tonight, attention will turn from the emerging athletes to the emerging artists.

02:09For the first time this year, the festival has added a musical component.

02:13Four local bands have been rehearsing throughout the week, performing original music in language

02:19and tonight is going to be the combination of that.

02:21There's going to be a battle of the band's performance.

02:25Like I said, they've been rehearsing all week so people have been getting sort of a taste

02:28of the songs as they've been developing throughout the week but tonight there's a lot of anticipation,

02:33building.

02:34Once the footy grand final wraps up, people are going to flock to the local basketball

02:38courts and people are very excited to hear those final polished performances.

02:42So I think it's just like a group of computers here.

02:43Good.

02:44I hope to see you soon.

02:45Maybe we're going to do the same thing.

02:47We'll talk about the same thing but there is a lot of them, and that in this case.

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