Her Name is Nanny Nellie — First Person Films

Her Name is Nanny Nellie is a powerful story of one woman’s determination to know and connect with the truths of her family’s history.

Produced for NITV/SBS
Feature Documentary
1h 19m

Available on SBS On Demand

Director: Daniel King
Executive Producer: Charlotte Seymour
Producer: Ben Pederick, Andrew Arbuthnot

In 1925, the Australian Museum commissioned three statues of ‘full blood’ Aboriginal people: a child, a man and a woman, exhibited as nameless objects to be studied as examples of a ‘dying race.’

The woman was Nellie Walker, Irene Walker’s great grandmother and director Daniel King’s great, great grandmother. Now Irene is on a journey to retrace Nellie’s life and to reconnect the other families to their ancestors’ statues and re-display them, this time with their names, identities and dignity.