SYNOPSIS

Latenzia, a Warumungu woman living in Jurnkkurakurr/Tennant Creek, five hours north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, asks her friend, Amanda, to raise her seven-year-old daughter Naida in faraway Lutruwita/Tasmania.

Latenzia is convinced her daughter will be unsafe in Tennant Creek once she hits her teens. She thinks sending her to Amanda gives Naida the best chance to flourish far from the corrosive impacts of grog, fighting, incarceration, poverty, powerlessness and despair in Tennant Creek. After holding herself high for so long, Latenzia is falling into the abyss, but she will do anything to stop the same thing happening to Naida.

The Pledge begins in 2019 when Amanda agrees to the radical pact. Amanda stays hopeful the Indigenous mother and daughter will be reunited soon. Perhaps not in Tennant Creek, but somewhere…

But by the time Naida is nine, she’s lost her mum three times: to alcohol, to distance and, finally, to death, after Latenzia dies tragically at Tennant Creek in 2021 while Naida and Amanda are visiting her.

Naida is the same age as Latenzia when her parents sent her away for the same reasons, and the same age as Latenzia’s mother Linda when her mother died. Three generations of bereaved little girls.

What happens next is the heart of this film. Bridging vast cultural and distances, The Pledge follows Naida’s life over the next five years as she grows from a brave little girl into a young teenager still living far from her kin and Country.

Combining raw observational footage with an extraordinary vault of two-generation family archive, this is the story of a child who, step by step, transforms two worlds into one, bringing enormous humour, candour, courage and insight to her experience.

Motherhood, sisterhood and sacrifice are the universal themes at the heart of The Pledge.

As Naida grows, Amanda is her rock. That’s not to say it’s plain sailing. Far from it. This feisty pair often skirmish. Fireworks explode. And so does their love. The bond between Naida and her ‘Manda’ is unbreakable. But every day that Naida is living with Manda’s family is a day apart from her own blood, culture and Country.

It’s revealed that Naida’s mum faced the same dilemma in her life. As we see heartrending footage of little Latenzia, 12, heading off to boarding school in a 2006 documentary on SBS, the audience begins to realise how she kept her two worlds apart. It was a way for her to feel safe, but it stranded her, too.

Manda and Naida have a chance to do things differently, beginning with a total commitment to sticking together whether it’s here or in Tennant Creek, and as one big family stretching from the Apple Isle to the edge of the Tanami Desert in Central Australia.

When Naida turns 13, she and Manda plan an epic road trip back to the Northern Territory in search of their future. The pressure is immense: Emotional. Logistical. Educational. Financial.

Manda must stay true to The Pledge but also never neglect the needs of her three older children for the sake of Naida. The dilemmas are authentic. For everyone it’s a gamble.

We follow the pair on their epic road trip in an old Toyota Troopcarrier towing a vintage caravan, capturing the joy of the reunion of Naida with her family, including the little brother KoKo, who she pines for, and the graveside sorrow as they finally unveil a headstone on the fourth anniversary of Latenzia’s death.

Back in Hobart after the trip, Naida and Manda start packing up their house. Will they return to Jurnkkurakurr/Tennant Creek? Or is it too fraught with danger? And if not there, then where?