David Gulpilil
Also Known As: David Gumpilil, David Dalaithngu, David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu AM
Biography: David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu AM, known professionally as David Gulpilil and posthumously for cultural reasons as David Dalaithngu for three days, was an Aboriginal Australian (Yolŋu) actor and dancer, known for the films Walkabout, Storm Boy, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and The Tracker.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
Birthday: July 01, 1953
Deathday: November 29, 2021
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
Australia
Overview: Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.
Genres: Adventure Romance Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-11-18
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Rabbit-Proof Fence
Overview: In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.
Genres: Adventure Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-02-04
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Crocodile Dundee
Overview: When a New York reporter plucks crocodile hunter Mick Dundee from the Australian Outback for a visit to the Big Apple, it's a clash of cultures and a recipe for good-natured comedy as naïve Dundee negotiates the concrete jungle. He proves that his instincts are quite useful in the city and adeptly handles everything from wily muggers to high-society snoots without breaking a sweat.
Genres: Adventure Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-09-26
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The Tracker
Overview: Somewhere in Australia in the early 20th century outback, an Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman. Three white men are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced Indigenous man.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-08-08
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Ten Canoes
Overview: A story within a story within a story. In Australia's Northern Territory, an Aboriginal narrator tells a story about his ancestors on a goose hunt. A youngster on the hunt is being tempted to adultery with his elder brother's wife, so an elder tells him a story from the mythical past about how evil can slip in and cause havoc unless prevented by virtue according to customary tribal law.
Genres: Adventure Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-06-29
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Walkabout
Overview: Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.
Genres: Adventure Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1971-07-01
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Storm Boy
Overview: Mike is a lonely Australian boy living in a coastal wilderness with his reclusive father. In search of friendship he encounters an Aboriginal native loner and the two form a bond in the care of orphaned pelicans.
Genres: Drama Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1977-07-28
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Mad Dog Morgan
Overview: The true story of Irish outlaw Daniel Morgan, who is wanted, dead or alive, in Australia during the 1850s.
Genres: Action Crime Drama Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-07-09
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The Last Wave
Overview: Australian lawyer David Burton agrees with reluctance to defend a group of Aboriginal people charged with murdering one of their own. He suspects the victim was targeted for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of water, slowly realizes danger may come from his own involvement with the Aboriginal people and their prophecies.
Genres: Drama Mystery Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1977-12-15
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Serenades
Overview: Set in the 1890s in the central desert region of Australia, 'Serenades' tells the tale of Jila who is conceived when her Afghan cameleer father wins her Aboriginal mother in a card game.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-05-31
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Satellite Boy
Overview: When his grandfather's drive-in cinema and home in the outback town of Wyndham is threatened with demolition, a twelve-year-old Aboriginal boy must journey through Australia's bush country — equipped only with ancient survival skills — to stop the city developers.
Genres: Adventure Drama Family
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-09-08
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To Shoot a Mad Dog
Overview: A documentary about the making of the Australian feature Mad Dog Morgan (1976).
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-01-01
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Following the Rabbit-Proof Fence
Overview: This documentary follows Phillip Noyce as he tries to find three aboriginal girls able to act in his film Rabbit Proof Fence. The film sees a cast of 100's whittled down to the eventual three girls and follows them through workshops and into the difficult shoot.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-04-15
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Walya Ngamardiki: The Land My Mother
Overview: Exploring the relationship between Aboriginal people and their land (including the Dreaming, sacred places), this film was inspired by Silas Roberts’ submission to the 1976 Australian Government inquiry on uranium mining - the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry. Silas, whose tribal name is Ngourladi, is an elder of the Allawa clan and was the first chairman of the Northern Land Council, established to assist Aboriginal people make land rights claims based on traditional ownership. The film, which moves from Arnhem Land in the north to Yuendumu in the centre, examines the importance of maintaining Aboriginal culture and laws and explains the reasons why they object to the mining being carried out.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-01-01
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The Proposition
Overview: In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.
Genres: Action Adventure Crime Drama Thriller Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-10-06
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Charlie's Country
Overview: Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-10-12
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Dark Age
Overview: In the Australian outback, a park ranger and two local guides set out to track down a giant crocodile that has been killing and eating the local populace..
Genres: Adventure Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-05-21
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Showing Melbourne to Maningrida
Overview: In 1973, fresh from his performance in Walkabout, a film that brought outback landscapes to urban audiences, Gulpilil returned the favour by paying a visit to Melbourne with camera in hand, shooting a wry fly-on-the-wall documentary that compares the sights and sounds of the city to those of his home in Arnhem Land.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1973-01-01
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The Rainbow Serpent
Overview: A timeless classic from the Dreamtime. there are innumerable names and stories associated with the Rainbow Serpent, all of which communicate the significance of this being within Aboriginal traditions.
Genres: Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-07-13
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Dead Heart
Overview: Ray Lorkin, chief lawman in the tiny rural settlement of Wala Wala, Australia, fears that long-simmering tensions between the area's aborigine natives and white settlers are on the verge of erupting. When it's discovered that Kate, the white wife of local schoolteacher Les, has despoiled a sacred site by secretly meeting her aborigine lover, Tony, there, a shocking murder threatens to rip the small town apart.
Genres: Mystery Thriller Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-09-08
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Another Country
Overview: In this documentary companion to CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, Australian actor David Gulpilil tells the story of when his people's way of life was derailed by ours.
Genres: Documentary Crime History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-07-29
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3 Dances Gulpilil
Overview: David Gulpilil performs three Aboriginal dances, Emu, Kangaroo and Fish. The first two are solo performances by Gulpilil and are closer to mime than dance. The third is a group dance with some of the children from Bamyili where Gulpilil lives in the Northern Territory.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-06-06
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Until the End of the World
Overview: In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an American doctor on the run from the CIA. They want to confiscate his father's invention – a device which allows anyone to record their dreams and visions.
Genres: Drama Science Fiction Adventure
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1991-09-12
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Goldstone
Overview: Indigenous Detective Jay Swan arrives in the frontier town of Goldstone on a missing persons inquiry. What seems like a simple investigation unearths an intricate web of crime, corruption, human trafficking, and coordinated exploitation of indigenous people’s land. Jay must bury his differences with young local cop Josh, so together they can bring justice to Goldstone.
Genres: Crime Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2016-07-07
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Crocodile Dreaming
Overview: Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.
Genres: Drama Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-01-01
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Gulpilil: One Red Blood
Overview: An hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-04-05
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MESSiAH
Overview: In a playful collision of cultures, a hapless Irishman and his Parisian girlfriend get more than they bargained for when they encounter a particularly mischievous stranger in the spectacular Australian wilderness.
Genres: Adventure Comedy Fantasy Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2016-06-01
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The Right Stuff
Overview: As the Space Race ensues, seven pilots set off on a path to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings forth momentous challenges.
Genres: Drama History Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-10-20
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Cargo
Overview: After being infected in the wake of a violent pandemic and with only 48 hours to live, a father struggles to find a new home for his baby daughter.
Genres: Drama Thriller Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-10-06
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My Name Is Gulpilil
Overview: Diagnosed with lung cancer, legendary Australian actor David Gulpilil boldly explains the journey that is his extraordinary, culture-clashing life.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2021-05-27
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Mimi
Overview: A white collector of Aboriginal art gets a shock when the Mimi sculpture she purchased comes to life.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-11-01
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Walkabout to Hollywood
Overview: Produced and directed this documentary for BBC in the 1980’s, about David Gulpilil, acclaimed Australian Aboriginal actor, dancer and musician. The film shows how Gulpilil is always working to bridge the gap between the tribal Aboriginal and Western worlds. He divides his time between a traditional tribal lifestyle and his artistic work, which has included major film roles, collaboration with contemporary dance and music groups and teaching Aboriginal dance and culture. Bill and David travel to Hollywood where David was the most popular Australian in the world at that time, with FOUR films playing in America – WALKABOUT, STORM BOY, THE LAST WAVE and MAD DOG MORGAN. After relating to both the black and native American cultures and filming a quick scene for a big Hollywood picture, he pines to head back through the Outback to his beloved Arnhem Land. Edited by Simon Dibbs and shot by Ray Henman.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1980-02-11
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Love of an Icon: The Legend of Crocodile Dundee
Overview: Nearly 40 years on, Crocodile Dundee remains Australia’s biggest film—what made it a cultural icon, and why does it still mean so much today?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2025-03-27
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