ARANMORE Catholic College student migrants are the stars of a music video that won Best Micro Short at the Social Justice Film Festival in Seattle.
Ahead of Harmony Day this Thursday , freelance director and producer Poppy van Oorde-Grainger said the video Same Drum called for all cultures living in Australia to be united and to live in happiness and peace.
“The video has been jetting around the world and has been featured in a film festival in Berlin, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Seattle and LA,” she said.
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The song and music video were created by students from the Aranmore’s Intensive English Centre, in collaboration with Ms van Oorde-Grainger, during a series of workshops at the college.
The video is sung in three African languages – Swahili, Dinka and Kinyarwanda – as well as English and has had about 80,000 views online and 500,000 people have viewed it through TV coverage.
Student and vocalist Juk Yuang (17) said the song was about acceptance.
“I just hope people will accept each other as one, because we’re all the same,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter where you come from, your culture, who you are – we’re basically human beings.”
Once a teenage migrant herself, Ms van Oorde-Grainger said she wanted to direct this project to empower young people.
“My intention was to give new Australians a voice and increase diversity on screen,” she said.
The video, which was released on Australia’s Harmony Day in 2018, also won WA Song Of The Year in the World Category in 2018.
Ms van Oorde-Grainger said the students won a day in a recording studio, and will perform and record a follow up song in May this year.