Video stories
The journey of disaster recovery and mental health is a difficult one to describe, so we decided to let the community do it themselves.
Two years after the devastating bushfires on the island, a group of locals got together at a shearing shed to have a sausage BBQ and a chat. Together with Junction Australia and the Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation, Humans of Kangaroo Island wanted to capture what it is that people are still working through.
The video shows the layers of recovery and everyone’s personal journey. Thank you to all involved and I hope it will impact you in a positive way watching this:

Documentary Film
Following the 2019/20 Black Summer fires, I decided to share my journals from the summer and create a documentary film telling the tales of fire-affected Kangaroo Island residents.
I connected with local filmmaking crew en plein air and we started filming in March 2020. During the many interviews with islanders, we learned about how the events of the most tragic bushfire day in Kangaroo Island history have impacted their lives and what their recovery journey since has looked like.
Many tears were shed during the months of filming and together we embarked on a storytelling adventure to create a memorial film for our future generations.
‘January 3rd’ has been written by myself based on this original idea and was produced by David Foreman and Ruth de la Lande and their sound engineer Gethin Craegh. We have been supported by the fire-affected Western Districts Memorial and Community Sports Centre and had financial grant funding through Wellbeing SA.
We are grateful to all the local residents who have shared their tales with us and the many people who will watch this film in the future. I believe that this has helped us all through our personal recovery battles and has helped us bond as a community even more.