Emu Runner
2018
After her mother's sudden death, a nine-year-old Aboriginal girl in rural Australia forms an obsessive bond with a wild emu, searching for a spiritual connection to what she's lost.
Where to Watch
Nine-year-old Gemma is fishing with her mother and sister at the water's edge when a wild emu catches her attention — her mother tells her the bird is called a Nori, and that every person carries an animal spirit connected to the land. Moments later, on the walk home, her mother collapses and dies.
What follows is Gemma's quiet, aching obsession with the emu: skipping school, stealing food to feed it, returning again and again to the place her mother died. Emu Runner is a study of grief refracted through Aboriginal spiritual tradition — a reminder of how a culture's stories keep loss, and love, alive in its children.