Synopsis:
Growing Up Nyima is a coming-of-age documentary filmed between 2025 and 2026. Photographer and filmmaker Harry Cunningham follows Nyima Tucker, a young Gnarluma, Banjima, and Yamatji woman navigating life between city and country.
Born in the Pilbara, where her ancestral roots run deep, Nyima was raised in Karratha before moving to Perth at 16. Living between these two worlds—modern and ancient, urban and remote, separated by 1,500 kilometres of desert—she grapples with identity, belonging, and the ever-calling of home.
Nyima embraces modern life—she loves photoshoots, creating social media content, dressing up, and going out, with dreams of travelling the world like many young women her age. At the same time, she holds a deep connection to her culture and family. Yet the film also reveals a more complex reality: for many Indigenous people, connection to country is not always something fully experienced or easily accessed.
Through an intimate, first-hand lens, the film offers a rare insight into the lived experience of a young Indigenous woman growing up in Australia today. It does not romanticise or simplify that experience; instead, it remains grounded in the realities of everyday life—its tensions, humour, and contradictions—subtly reshaping perceptions.
As Nyima returns home for the first time as an adult, she encounters her country in new ways, including seeing the rock art of Murujuga up close for the first time—an experience that reflects both connection and distance, and a growing connection to her culture.
Nyima is thoughtful, sharp, and disarmingly funny. She loves her family, her culture, and her country. Without trying to be, she emerges as a role model—simply through her honesty and the way she moves through the world as herself.
At a time when Indigenous stories are often told through the perspectives of older generations, Growing Up Nyima amplifies a younger voice—capturing the resilience, nuance, and lived reality of a new generation navigating both city and country, and offering a sense of hope for the future of Indigenous Australia.
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