All eyes are fixed intently on the rocky Devonian reef outcrop where Jandamarra perches, clad in dirty khaki and clutching his rifle close.
A man with a boom microphone teeters at the edge as the first assistant director calls "action" and everyone on the ground holds their breath.
The young Bunuba man looks right, then left, then pushes himself to his feet, gazing pensively into the distance, beyond the towering boabs. He knows the police are coming, but he is ready - and watching him prepare for battle sends a chill down the spine.
Over the past month, the true story of this long-dead Aboriginal warrior, almost whitewashed from official history but whispered with reverence among his descendants, is being brought back to life.
Patrick Chungal, centre, prepares for the filming of the corroboree with two other men from Fitzroy Crossing. Picture: Nic EllisMitch Torres, a Broome-based filmmaker funded by Screenwest and Screen Australia to make the one-hour documentary Jandamarra's War, for the ABC, said she had long been intrigued by the heroic story.
"My grandfather told it in that real blackfella way - about Jandamarra's spiritual powers and how he defied bullets and did all these amazing things," she said. "He was charismatic, persuasive, an individual who made his own rules and went against his elders and broke traditional law. He was an amazing young man who was a freedom fighter, not an outlaw."
In character, Keithan Holloway, a Bunuba-Gooniyandi man from the remote Muludja Aboriginal community who plays Jandamarra, channels the fury and defiance of his ancestor - a man who led police and pastoralists on a merry chase for three years after shooting policeman Bill Richardson on October 31, 1894. Instantly, Jandamarra turned from friend to a bitter foe.
Rebellious and promiscuous, he had been banished from his Bunuba tribe for flouting traditional laws and lived among white settlers as they tried to develop farms on lands considered sacred to their Aboriginal inhabitants.
As Richardson's trusted sidekick, he patrolled Bunuba country, helping catch prisoners who were forced into slave labour or punished for stealing stock. But on the day 17 senior Bunuba law men were marched towards prison, Jandamarra was spurred to act. For three years, the man newspapers excitedly dubbed the "Aboriginal Ned Kelly" evaded capture.
Pastoralists and police killed Bunuba people indiscriminately in retaliation for Jandamarra's defiance. It wasn't until April 1, 1897, after the police called on "Micki", an Aboriginal tracker, that Jandamarra met his match. Felled with a single gunshot, he plunged to his death from a high limestone ridge at Tunnel Creek. But in the hearts of Kimberley Aboriginal people, Torres said, his legend lives on.
