13 June 2025
The feature documentary YURLU | COUNTRY, an intimate portrait of Aboriginal Elder Maitland Parker and his fight to save his homeland, devastated by the asbestos mining industry, recently premiered at Sydney Film Festival 2025.
The documentary was written, directed and produced by Yaara Bou Melhem and colour graded by Senior Colourist Angela Cerasi for Peachy Keen Colour. The stunning and sometimes haunting images were beautifully shot by DOP Tom Bannigan ACS. In the film, the audience are invited in to Maitland’s home and family, and through his story are left asking the bigger questions about ethics, politics and in-action / action.
It was an absolute honour to work with Yaara and Tom on this feature film and help to bring the natural beauty to life. Peachy facilitated a hybrid remote and in-person workflow, which suited all collaborators.
Angela flew to Sydney to set the look, using the brilliant 4K theatrette at Edge CT (facilitated by Post Production Specialist and all-round excellent human Morgan Lawless). After a couple of days of workshopping the right amount of warmth, saturation, grain, contrast and cinematic feel – Angela returned to her studio in Brisbane.
There she was able to take her time with the project, just like a composer goes away and sits with the film… rippling the looks across the film and making sure each scene felt just right. She sent graded stills of her progress to Yaara and Tom at the end of each day.
When it was complete (roughly 80 minutes duration and 1000 shots later), Angela returned to Sydney and presented her work. With fresh eyes Yaara, Tom and Angela watched the film through from start to finish in the Edge CT theatrette.
With these “fresh eyes”, it was easy to identify a scene that needed a tweak, for example a hospital scene which needed to feel cooler again, or a sunset which could be saturated even further with warmth to represent the sentiment and love between two brothers.
They finished the film together, extremely happy with the end result. Angela then spent an extra day solo doing an HDR pass of the film (the creative team decided to grade the film as SDR theatrical first – taking the most time with this, and HDR second).
The film is up for the Documentary Australia Award which “recognises the incredible artistry and tenacity of independent filmmakers who devote years of their lives to capture and share the most important stories across Australia and the world.”
Peachy used the same hybrid workflow on the incredible documentary The Pool. To see if this workflow could work for your project, please get in touch.
Peachy is Australia’s leading film and TV colour grading studio for commercials, documentary and scripted narrative drama. We are dedicated to forming meaningful connections with your story and evoking the intended emotions from audiences through colour, in line with your directorial vision. We’d love to chat about your project!
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