The film was awarded the Festival Grand Prix for Best International Documentary by the jury, and won the Grand Prix Audience Award for Best International Documentary.
Countryman, a documentary by Australian director Peter Pecotić and Warumungu artist and storyteller Joseph Williams Jungarrayi, won two awards at the 4th TEF – Festival of Tourism and Ethno Film, held on the island of Krk from September 22 to 25, 2026. The film was awarded the Festival Grand Prix for Best International Documentary by the jury, and won the Grand Prix Audience Award for Best International Documentary, according to audience votes.
Countryman follows the journey undertaken in 1958 by Pecotić’s late father, who traveled from Sydney to Cairns to visit Dalmatian compatriots from his native island of Korčula, who were cutting sugarcane in northern Queensland. Decades later, following in the footsteps of that journey, Pecotić met Joseph Williams Jungarrayi, an artist and storyteller from the Warumungu people of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory — and discovered an unexpected connection between the two. Their friendship, and the realization that they share an unbreakable bond with the land of their ancestors, became the foundation of the story at the heart of the film.
The screening on Krk was opened by a video message recorded by Joseph Williams in his hometown, in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, and the screening was followed by a panel discussion “How Reality Stole Our Script”, in which Pecotić and television host and travel journalist Martina Validžić participated, moderated by university professor and writer Nikola Petković.
The film was included in the festival program with the support of the Croatian Heritage Foundation – Rijeka Branch, and as part of a promotional tour started in May 2024 with the support of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, which took the film throughout Croatia and the diaspora in neighboring countries. The film was screened as part of the festival on September 23 at the DUBoak Maritime Heritage Interpretation Center in Malinska, and on September 25 at the Krk Cinema.
“It is a great honor to receive these awards. I’m so happy that the good story of Tennant Creek and the Warumung people reaches audiences on the other side of the world — in my other ancestral homeland, over there in Europe. I hope to come and visit soon,” said Joseph Williams Jungarrayi, co-author of Countryman.
“A warm thank you to everyone at the TEF festival,” Pecotić said. “The people of the Kvarner region were so warm and open to our story. Being so well understood in a place so far away from Australia — it feels like Countryman has found another home here.”
Mayor of Krk, Darijo Vasilić; Mayor of Malinska, Robert A. Kraljić; Deputy County Prefect of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Toni Štimac; and the CHF – Rijeka branch attended the festival’s award ceremony, and guests from neighboring countries—Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, and Italy — also participated in the festival.
Further screenings of Countryman are planned across Croatia and Europe, in the hope that Joseph will visit Croatia soon.
Text: Petar Pecotić / Photo: CHF
