Events at the old church in the bush
To enquire about using our space for an upcoming event or performance please go to our performers page.
Film screening: 'contact'- including Q&A with co-director Central Victorian Indigenous Film Festival returns to yandoit
Sunday June 1st, 2025
Time: 5.00pm
Where: Yandoit Uniting Church , Uniting Church Rd, off High St
Entry by donation
Support our film makers, local first nations projects and the continuation of Yandoit Cultural
Description:
Co-director, Bentley Dean, will introduce the film and respond to questions at the end.
CONTACT is constructed around one of the most extraordinary pieces of footage in Australian history: The moment when a group of Martu women and children walk in from their nomadic existence of millennia into the universe of European modernity.
The film centers on Yuwali, the beautiful 17-year old girl we see making that giant leap on the 24th of September 1964. Now 62, Yuwali’s account of the ‘first contact’ experience is probably the fullest and most revealing ever caught on film. Her group of twenty were the last remnant aboriginal mob still living traditionally, without any contact or knowledge of modern Australia, in the remote Great Sandy Desert.
A huge space rocket test – Blue Streak – was to be fired in May 1964 at their home in the dry Percival Lakes. The authorities sent in patrol officers to evacuate anyone living there to protect them from rocket debris.
The days counting down to blast off drive the narrative of the film. Back at the Lakes, Yuwali gives a riveting account as she and her group are chased hundreds of kilometers around the desert trying to escape the ‘devilmen’ in the ‘rocks that move’ (four wheel drives). The climax is both extraordinary and emotional.
Directed by: Bentley Dean and Martin Butler
Awards: Joint Winner- Best Documentary – Sydney Film Festival, 2009.
Winner Best Achievement in Directing for Documentary- Australian Directors Guild, 2009
Bookings: https://yandoitcultural.org/bookings/
Cost: Entry by Donation- in support of our film makers, local indigenous programs and community venues.
BARRY GOLDING SHARES STORIES ABOUT HIS BOOK: ' SIX PEAKS SPEAK'
Saturday April 26th, 2025
Time: 4.00pm
Where: Yandoit Cultural- the old church in the bush, Uniting Church Rd, off High St, Yandoit.
Description:
Kingston resident and author, Barry Golding, will share stories about his compelling journey in southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country through the eyes of six iconic mountains in central Victoria. The featured mountains are today called Mt Kooroocheang [near Smeaton], Mt Beckworth [near Clunes], Mt Greenock [near Talbot], Mt Tarrengower [near Maldon], Mt Alexander [near Castlemaine] and Mt Franklin [near Daylesford]. Six Peaks Speak is an interdisciplinary and intercultural story across time, cultures, contested histories and unsettled relationships, uniquely traversing First Nations and unsettler, history, geology, ecology, anthropology and reserve management. Barry will focus on some of the lesser known legacies in his book associated with Lalkambuk /Mt Franklin, with reference also to Gurutjanga / Mt Kooroocheang and Liyanganuk / Mt Alexander’ . Rodney Carter, Dja Dja Wurrung Chief Executive Officer, says of the book: ‘The deep and painstaking research undertaken to bring this book together is significant and impressive. The narrative style, interweaving history of the locations with geology make this book unique, quite beautiful and accessible to a broader audience. It involves a discussion about deeply unsettling legacies, highly relevant today in Australia. It is indeed powerful and disquieting at the same time.’ Cost: Suggested donation- $10.00/8.00. |
Yandoit Sacred
Saturday February 22nd, 2025
Time: 2.00pm
Where: Yandoit Uniting Church , Uniting Church Rd, off High St
Description:
Join us this coming Saturday February 22nd at 2.00pm for our first Yandoit Sacred gathering for the year.
We’ll start with a meditation, led by Karina, a way to ‘clear the space’, to encourage deep focus, to pay attention to what’s arising in each of us and then to share that with others present.
For 2025, we envisage building on what’s been emerging over the past year, being guided by this ‘place’, and creating a community of deep listening into the sacred.
We plan to meet regularly every 6 weeks, on Saturday afternoons and sometimes on weekday evenings (outside and around a fire when possible). We’re developing a calendar of gathering dates so watch this space or subscribe to Yandoit Sacred‘s email list (on this website) for more updates.
About Yandoit Cultural
Yandoit Cultural is located at Yandoit’s historic Uniting Church - Uniting Church Rd (off High St), Yandoit, 3461, Central Victoria. This old church in the bush is an intimate space seating approximately 100, with excellent acoustics.
Yandoit Cultural provides an arts and cultural space for the communities of Yandoit, Clydesdale and Franklinford, as well as surrounding townships in central Victoria. We encourage local, acoustic, quality and innovative performances with a diverse, inclusive program of music, story, song, poetry, film, visual arts and local history. In addition, Yandoit Cultural is available for wedding hire, musical recordings and more.
Yandoit Cultural celebrates the retention of our community’s much-loved and historical Uniting (ex-Methodist) church. Over the years many churches across central Victoria, and throughout Australia, have been decommissioned and subsequently sold. Once vital community hubs and commons, these buildings shift from public to private. The communities of Yandoit, Clydesdale and Franklinford are committed to retaining our precious church in community hands and to exploring ways the church can continue as a community gathering place, as local cultural centre, and as a venue for an emerging faith community.
Yandoit Cultural is committed to arts and culture being accessible to everyone. In most instances entry is by donation. We offer country hospitality with afternoon tea/supper provided at each event. Yandoit Cultural is a project of the Yandoit Clydesdale and Franklinford Community Planning Group.
If you’re interested in performing at Yandoit Cultural complete our expression of interest form.
