Not only is this a nostalgic look back at the Aquarius Festival of 1973 in Nimbin, NSW, it serves as a very timely reminder of the many changes we’ve gone through over the last fifty years. Once upon a time, you’d find all universities had student unions where concerned young people would air their grievances and set about to activate change to make conditions better one way or another. The early days of many things are revealed in Aquarius; a documentary that makes use of historic footage taken at the festival to highlight many wonderful things about it. Things that may be a revelation to some include talk of climate change, the first protest to save rainforests from being logged, and the activities of Cold War ASIO, to name a few.
People who were involved in setting it all up, or at least attended, offer insights and relevant anecdotes about the notorious hippie festival that took over the sleepy little town of Nimbin. After being harassed by police on campus, a pair of student representatives go on a long road trip looking for the perfect spot to hold a festival for young people with an interest in living an alternative lifestyle. Most of them are approaching their seventies and keep fond memories of the movement they were part of.
There are alliances with local First Nation Indigenous elders made to respect and protect the site, possibly the first ‘Welcome to Country’ and other significant moments.
Living a self-sustaining lifestyle, farming, and striving for peace eventually succumbed to growing marijuana to make some regular dollars for some, but not all, of the hippies.
Seeing a young, switched-on festival full of lean Aussies skipping through fields or lounging naked in the meadow is a fairly rare thing and very entertaining. The director Wendy Champagne has pieced together lots of found footage taken at the time and assembles it in a way that gives a great insight into the happening. Some of the footage was taken by local Adelaide people who went along to the festival to make a short film. The task of putting all of these snippets of material together on film must have been painstaking, because the result is fairly seamless. One sequence flows well into the next, and the story being told progresses at a good pace.
It is the intention of the filmmaker to bring this time capsule to our attention now in order to encourage and stimulate some of the activities that were so natural back then – mainly standing up for the environment and the rights of all people.
A lot has changed in fifty years, and it is easy to see in Aquarius that we haven’t necessarily moved on in the best way as a nation under the rule of conservative governments hesitant to change anything that seems to be working. It is peppered with some terrific old music from the time and brings a good deal of material into focus that will not only arrest its audience, it will definitely educate too.
Aquarius featured in the Adelaide Film Festival and should be getting a broader release in the near future.
