CM Film Productions

The stories in The Habits of New Norcia are told by former Western Australian Aboriginal child 'inmates' of the New Norcia Benedictine Mission who were separated from their families in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and confined in this "orphanage without orphans". In recent decades the New Norcia Monastery has been packaged as one of the State's leading cultural tourist attractions. "A unique blend of Spanish architecture, European art treasures and pioneer history," "Monks, Music & Mystery," "New Norcia, Australia's only monastic town," the brochures announce. Aboriginal testimony in the film challenges this revised and sanitised history. The documentary provides damming evidence of the continuing violence of the Mission against its victims by deliberate omission of their experience in the New Norcia museum, guided tours, art gallery and promotions — an omission that represents a cruel and wounding cover-up.

Sandalwood is the basis of most of the world’s most expensive and exotic perfumes. Once prolific, 80% of it now comes from only one location, the outback of Western Australia. Tribal Scent follows the journey of choreographer, dancer, didgeridoo player, activist and tribal leader Dr Richard Walley. Richard joins forces with scientists and the world’s major perfume makers in Grasse, France. Together they work toward their shared goal of protecting one of the few remaining indigenous Sandalwood reserves in the world and, at the same time, protecting the harvesters in the outback deserts of Western Australia and thus protecting the sustainability of the high-end perfume industry itself. WA holds 80% of the world’s Sandalwood reserve.