Where the Green Ants Dream

Where the Green Ants Dream is a 1984 English-language West German film co-written and directed by Werner Herzog, made in Australia. Based on a true story about Indigenous land rights in Australia but slated as a mixture of fact and fiction, the film only got a limited release in Australia and was not well received by critics, although it did fare a bit better in Europe and North America. Plot Based partly on the Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd ("Gove land rights") case about Indigenous land rights on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, it was a mix of fact and fiction. The ant mythology was claimed as Herzog's own, but some First Nations peoples did consider the green ant as a totem animal that created the world and humans. Wandjuk Marika noted that the ant Dreaming belief existed in a clan that lived near Oenpelli in the Northern Territory. The film is set in the Australian outback and is about a land feud between a mining company called Ayers (based on Nabalco) and the local Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal people claim that an area the mining company wishes to work on is the place where green ants dream, and that disturbing them will destroy humanity. Production Herzog made use of professional actors as well as Aboriginal activists from the Northern Territory who were involved in the case and local Aboriginal people from the main filming location, the desert town of Coober Pedy in South Australia. It was also filmed in and near Melbourne, Victoria.