MAMMUNG is a collaborative film project between human rights filmmaker Maevia Griffiths and International Lawyer Lillian Robb. The Noongar people of Western Australia are one of the few cultures on earth with a living memory of the last time the sea level rose. MAMMUNG the film explores these stories of adaptation to climate change as guided by Dr Noel Nannup, and asks how we can incorporate these stories: imagining a pathway forward in which indigenous knowledge can be heard and understood.
Maevia Griffiths is passionate about filmmaking, storytelling, and the transformative potential of visuality, affect and aesthetics, she is the co-founder and co-director of VIFT and is a PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen in Political Sciences. She works both as a social science researcher and as a film director, aiming to bring both disciplines together. With two different Masters, one in Documentary Filmmaking (Goldsmiths University, 2022) and the other in Development Studies (Geneva Graduate Institute, 2021) specialised in gender, power and conflict studies, she mobilises transdisciplinary visual methods for matters of social (in)visibilities, violence, affect, memory and human rights. Her works engage with various social activist film projects, such as the documentary Elles les (in)visibles (2021) which recounts the stories of four undocumented women domestic workers in Geneva. Maevia uses filmmaking as a medium to visually engage with social science research and social activism and has often worked with vulnerable populations in diverse cultural settings. Aware of the power dynamics involved in research and filmmaking, she attempts to integrate visual anthropological perspectives into her work, ensuring that the recording of indigenous populations is always carried out with great respect for their needs and beliefs.
Lillian Robb is an international lawyer and PhD Candidate in International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her work engages with those areas of public law where the field can support and bolster movements of social change and innovation. Lillian's PhD research focuses on the inclusion of indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups in the design of climate adaptation strategies in the Asia-Pacific. Lillian was raised in Fremantle, Australia, and topics relating to Western Australian indigenous heritage and engagement, as well as reparation of the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous West Australians, are close to her heart. She attempts to connect the legal fields in which she specializes to social movements and multidisciplinary actors who can enrich and guide more effective and more holistic law and policy. Lillian's focuses include international environmental law, the rights of indigenous populations, international criminal law, strategic litigation, human rights, and Australian Migration, indigenous heritage, environmental and administrative law.
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