AustLit

A young girl goes missing within the Australian landscape and her father refuses to let an Aboriginal man, Albert, be included in the search party and utilise his 'tracking' skills. It is a decision that proves fatal. Months later, the child's mother approaches Albert to begin the tracking process that eventually leads her to her lost child.

Inspired by the stories of the coastal peoples of the land on which the City of Sydney now stands, Fish: An Unborn Soul follows the journey and meanings of nature's great waters, their inhabitants and cycles, their depths and rituals. A non-linear story, it presents the central myth of fish as unborn souls, as haunted individuals waiting for their moment to transform into mortal beings, with the attendant pain and celebration such a birth demands.

The film is a cinematic adaptation of an original theatre work by Australia's Bangarra Dance Theatre and first staged in 1997. Its haunting choreography, especially conceived for the camera, takes the viewer on a spiritual journey in three acts: Fish (an unborn soul); Call (the poison fish); and Wash (in sacred waters).