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The Moogai: What did he look like?
Title:
The Moogai: What did he look like?
Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) has come home from work to be by the side of Sarah (Shari Sebbens), who is deeply distressed by an encounter with an unwelcome visitor. Fergus questions Sarah about what the intruder looked like but it’s soon clear that she doesn’t think this was a home invasion. But will Fergus believe her or think she’s crazy?
Summary by Amal Awad
Director Jon Bell’s award-winning short film The Moogai is a horror thriller that sees young Aboriginal couple Sarah (Shari Sebbens) and Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) take their first newborn child home. But when Sarah starts to have chilling visions of a young girl, she’s not sure if it’s a dream or reality. Increasingly destabilised by her visions, they evolve into more horrifying threats when she becomes convinced a child-stealing spirit is coming for her baby. Fergus thinks she’s imagining it, but either way, their family is under threat.
The SXSW 2021 Jury Award winner for Midnight Short and recipient of the 2020 Shorts Award at MIFF, the film draws on the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. The reception to it was so strong that it was ultimately made into a horror feature film that premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2024.
Notes by Amal Awad
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.