Marissa Gibson – Delilah

Samson and Delilah

Actors Biography

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Marissa has had small parts in film and television productions as an extra, but this is her first major role. She lives in Alice Springs, where she attends high school and studies her newly favorite subjects – English and Drama. She speaks three languages – Warlpiri, Luritja and English, and until this year was studying Japanese language too. She put her acting wages towards a school study tour of Japan after the completion of filming. She loves to text-message and eat spring rolls from the Alice Springs Sunday Markets.

Marissa on Delilah

“A short film synopsis of Delilah is a teenager who is part of the aboriginal culture in Australia. As an aboriginal girl Delilah participates in traditional aboriginal ceremonies and aboriginal spirituality within her community. Delilah also lives out in the bush where most native people of Australia reside. Delilah is kind hearted and respects her elders.  Delilah with her aboriginal family, who’s lineage dates back to one of the first aboriginal tribes of Australia. When Delilah’s nana suddenly passes away Delilah’s family thinks it’s her fault and punishes her according to aboriginal customs, with sticks. Delilah then meets another Aboriginal teenager, Samson, and they fall in love. Samson and Delilah don’t say it but they feel it. Aboriginal people don’t say very much, we just use body language. Samson and Delilah go into town but have nowhere to stay because they are from the bush so they stay under the bridge in the creek. Samson and Delilah try to get food but they don’t have money so they start to steal, and slowly Delilah becomes another person. I hope the film gives the viewer information about Australia, and indigenous Australian culture. I want the viewer to know that it’s different here, compared to other places, it’s hard to explain, we just live in a different world. This is basically my synopsis film review”

 

Rowan McNamara – Samson

Samson and Delilah

Actors Biography

Rowan makes his screen debut in SAMSON & DELILAH. Rowan is part of a community filled with Australian indigenous people on the outskirts of the Alice Springs township. Rowan is Eastern Arrente and is originally from Santa Teresa, he is part of the community 80km southeast of Alice.  He is a keen AFL footballer, a devoted fan of Essendon Football Club and has traveled Australia playing footy with his school.Rowan’s favorite food of the moment is lasagne.

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

 

Rowan on Samson

“My name is Rowan Mcnamara, my mother gave me an one of the original aboriginal names, and I act as Samson in the movie. Samson likes hunting, aborigines art, sniffing and listening to music, but not his brother’s band. Oh, and he’s lover-lover for Delilah. I like acting, but not with girls, they just wreck it. nah, only gammon (joking).”

Mitjili Gibson – Nana

Samson and Delilah

Actors Biography

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

According to the aboriginal wiki, Mitjili’s noted as being in linage to one of the original aboriginal people of Australia. As part of the Australian aboriginals that first inhabited Australia Mitjili is getting started on her career. Even though her first acting job was playing the title role in film Nana, she is looked at as one of the most famous Australian people. She has also been featured in Beck Cole’s SBS documentary Lore of Love, where she teaches her granddaughters about the traditional rules of love.

Acting is the latest of many jobs in Mitjili’s life. She has also taken up aboriginal dot painting in the last few years and has become a very highly regarded artist. The beautiful aboriginal art symbols and aboriginal poems featured in the film are her own.

Scott Thornton – Gonzo

Samson and Delilah

Actors Biography

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Scott studied acting at the Eora Centre in Redfern, Sydney. His first film role was in a short film called Camping Out by Lee Willis-Ardler.

Scott is Warwick’s older brother and has been bugging him for years to get a part in one of his films – finally his wish came true.

 

The Verandah Band

Samson and Delilah

Actors Biography

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

The three band members are part of a real band called The Desert Mulga Band. All three-band members grew up as aborigines in Australia. Matthew Gibson, Steven Brown and Gregwyn Gibson, who were featured in the film, have been travelling to Australia and back doing tours and promotions. They are usually joined by singer Shannon Gallagher. Steven and Gregwyn forgot about continuity and decided to cut their hair after the first week of filming, which caused Carol the makeup artist much grief and amusement, but nothing that a beanie couldn’t fix.

Warwick Thornton – Writer / Director / DOP / Composer

Samson and Delilah

Director

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Warwick has been waiting patiently for about 20 years to make a feature film about aboriginal ancestry and aboriginal cultures since he first started hanging out at CAAMA Radio in Alice Springs in his teens. Warwick was a teenage DJ at CAAMA and he used to watch the video unit vehicle drive off to exotic places and was forced to hear all the stories when they came back. When a media traineeship came up he jumped at the chance and hasn’t looked back. He learnd his trade of cinematography on the job and then went to AFTRS film school in Sydney for three years. It was here he decided to film Samson and Delilah. aboriginal tribe names

In the Samson movie, Warwick presented aboriginal Australian culture. Not only did he he present Australian desert facts, but he also incorporated original aboriginal tribe names within his movie. Samson and Delilah shows aboriginal people in Australia as  smart, loving, and kind individuals.

Currently information and movies about Aborigines culture is on the back end. This is especially true within western and European societies. In fact, if you were to ask a westerner about aboriginal communities or aborigines culture, they would have no basic knowledge of that subject matter. As a result, Warwick decided to shed some light on Australian aboriginal tribes.  

The aboriginal people of Australia were grateful to Warwick for filming a story about their indigenous Australian culture and customs.  Warwick presented the western world an understanding of aboriginal culture facts and aboriginal information.

After the story of Samson and Delilah the aborigines of Australia will no longer have to contemplate on whether they have a voice. Because they do.

After filming Samson and Delilah, he got bored of sitting around waiting for the phone to ring with work offers, so he decided to write some of his own ideas. His body of work includes short films Payback, Mimi, Green Bush and Nana. He has also directed and shot loads of documentaries including Rosalie’s Journey about the star of the film Jedda.

He lives in Alice Springs and is obsessed with collecting Gibson guitars and riding dirt bikes.

Kath Shelper – Producer

Samson and Delilah

Producers

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Kath pictured here with Beck Cole (standing) who is making a documentary about Rowan and Marissa

Aboriginals, Australia were two words Kath Shelper wanted to know more about. Kath grew up wanting to learn aboriginal history in Australia even though she was raised in country Victoria. Here she completed a PR degree at RMIT in Melbourne (even though she wanted to do Media but didn’t get in). When she finished her PR degree she wanted more facts about aborigines so she hung out in Melbourne and worked on Emma-Kate Croghan’s film school. She scored a producer attachment on Lawrence Johnston’s Eternity and moved to Sydney “just for six months” but fifteen years later she’s still there learning more about the Australia aboriginal history and Australian aboriginal tribes.

Kath has managed to eek a living out of a movie producer salary by shooting more than her fair share of short films. Now she is steadily relieved that she has finally graduated to a feature. Kath and Warwick made Green Bush and Nana together, and Kath’s other films include Plains Empty, Above the Dust Level and Confessions of a Headhunter, which won the AFI Award for Best Short in 2000.

Peter Bartlett – Assistant Producer / Casting

Samson and Delilah

Ass. Producers/Casting

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Aboriginal, people facts, aboriginal art, Australia. Bartlett is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to these four things. He is also a master when it comes to taking pictures of aborigines and the deserts of Australia. Ask him any of things about these four words and he will give you a story. He knows the meaning of being a aboriginal in Australia. He is did casting, acting, organising, animal wrangling, driving, translating, and snake-removal from the unit based jobs amongst many other roles. He is married to Mitjili’s daughter Cinderella and they live in Alice Springs with their big extended family. Bartlett also worked with Kath and Warwick on Green Bush and Nana. He is a sought-after expert on all things flora and fauna in Central Australia and when David Attenborough comes to town – Bartlett is the man he calls to find those rare species.

Daran Fulham – Production Designer

Samson and Delilah

Production Designer

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

(Daran on set for his 40th birthday)

Daran is quite mad which is why Warwick likes him. They fight – which is healthy, apparently. They went to film school together and Daran has designed most of Warwick’s films including Payback, Mimi and Green Bush. Daran fell in love with a French gal and now lives in Paris and works on big Hollywood films like Defiance and Blood Diamond. He is also a supporter of his two favorite words, aboriginal art, Australia. He has the most massive collection of these two things.

Roland Gallois – Editor/Actor

Samson and Delilah

Editor/Actor

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Kath and Warwick had the good fortune of working with Roland on their films Green Bush and Nana, and Warwick will again team with Roland on his new documentary series Art & Soul, about Indigenous art. Roland considers Samson & Delilah a career highlight and celebrated by buying his very own 2 x 3 metre wide Mitjili Napanangka Gibson masterpiece painting titled Aboriginal people, Australia. Roland has worked with lots of other people as well on some amazing projects and even won an AFI Award for his editing work. He also features on-screen as the art gallery owner in the film. Samson, Delilah is only the beginning of his career.

Liam Egan – Sound Designer

Samson and Delilah

Sound Designer

Samson and Delilah - Short Stories About Love

Liam loves cats. During the sound edit on Samson & Delilah, one of his went missing, which caused major problems in his household for a few days, but the drama ended happily. He has worked with Kath and Warwick on lots of films including the Bit of Black Business series (including Nana), Green Bush, Plains Empty and many more. The sound post was completed at Philmsound because they have a great selection of chocolates, not to mention that Phil’s a nice guy. Robert Sullivan was the ace mixer once again.