Composer chat: David Bridie
Screen and Games Account Manager Monique Matthews sat down with composer David Bridie to discuss soundtracking the film Journey Home, David Gulpilil
The film premiered at the 2025 Sydney Film Festival program
David Gulpilil stands among Australia’s most iconic screen actors, with a career that began in 1971 with Walkabout and spanned five decades, featuring powerful performances in landmark films such as Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Tracker. Following his passing in 2021, Gulpilil’s remains were repatriated from Murray Bridge, South Australia, to his ancestral homeland in Yolngu country. That final journey—over 3000 kilometres of outback roads from Victor Harbor to Darwin, followed by a chartered flight and helicopter ride to East Arnhem Land—is captured in a deeply moving and beautifully crafted documentary.
Monique had a chat with composer David Bridie about how he approached scoring the film and bringing Gulpilil’s story to life through music. “It was a real privilege to be involved in this film.” said Bridie.
Bridie worked closely with David Gulpilil’s son, Jida to create the soundscape of the film.
“We spent a couple of days recording songs, and Jida performed these really guttural cries that were used throughout the score. I think it’s very important that the Western instruments you use allows the songs, and melodies and texture to compliment the nature of First Nations songs.”
“There’s a quality in the melody and the texture in his voice, and the delivery that was really resonant. He’d sit down and tell stories between takes; stories of him in LA with his dad that were the most incredible name-drops.”
Stories where Jida would mention meeting people like Jack Nicholson, Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan. According to Bridie, Jida spent time with his father in LA, where he was such a revered actor that people just gravitated towards him.
David Bridie had an existing relationship with David Gulpilil’s son, Jida, long before the creation of this film. For the last twenty years, they’d speak every few months or so. When they were recording the works for this score, Bridie said “So much of the process is about trust, and I really appreciated that there was trust there to work these songs. And I trusted him implicitly.”
He said that “there was a real potency to his voice, and his performance. The emotion was incredibly real, and his performance was giving it all he had.”
Bridie also recorded parts of the music with Yirrmal Marika and Miriam Ashley.
“There is this amazing wailing that shows the intensity of the women’s mourning…it’s incredible.
There is a power to first nations songs, and the pieces of music needed to be sung by the right people and placed at the right moment in the film.”
Bridie said “David was such a big figure, especially for the Yolngu people, and those families in and around that place. No matter who was contacted to contribute to the score, everyone knew that this was an important job… It had a gravitas to it, but also a great sense of purpose to it. It was just important.
The emotion of the score needed to work with all those elements. This is such a vital story. I’ve never done a soundtrack that I’ve wanted to get more right.”
Journey Home, David Gulpilil will be showing 16 - 24 August at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). Learn more here.
