Spanning some 3,200 kilometres between Darwin and Adelaide, the Australian Overland Telegraph Line (OTL) revolutionised communication, linking the continent with the rest of the world in 1872.

At the time it was hailed as a technological marvel, but for the Kaytetye and Warumungu people of Central Australia, the story of the OTL is very different. It is one of survival, resistance, and the violent legacy of colonial expansion.

A new short film, The Truth About the Telegraph, directed by Gurindji/Malngin, Pertame Arrernte and Worimi filmmaker Kieran Mpetyane Satour, confronts the colonial narrative of the Telegraph Line and centres the voices of the Aboriginal nations whose lands it cut through.

Through oral histories passed down across generations, the film sheds light on the impacts of the OTL on two neighbouring Aboriginal peoples — the Kaytetye and Warumungu — whose lives were forever changed by its construction.

Funded by the South Australian Government, the OTL was built in three stages between 1870 and 1872. It required thousands of telegraph poles, wires, insulators and batteries, and was supported by a network of repeater stations designed to boost the electrical signal.

Many of these stations were located at water sources — essential not only for the line's operation, but for the survival of Aboriginal peoples and native wildlife for thousands of years. These were often sacred sites, and their occupation became flashpoints for tension, violence, and cultural disruption as pastoralists, scientists and settlers moved in.

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Speaking to National Indigenous Times, Mr Satour — co-founder of GARUWA, a 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned and operated production company — said the Telegraph Line marked the beginning of permanent outposts across the region, and with them, the arrival of white settlement.

As he explains: "Lots of consequences [came] of that contact."

"For some of these places, it was the frontier of colonisation," he says. "There was lots of things going on; both kind of positive and negative, but a lot of negatives..."

The film is rooted in Truth-telling, with Mr Satour challenging the notion that the Telegraph Line was the first communication system on the continent — a claim that erases the thousands of years of Aboriginal knowledge systems, such as songlines, which connected communities long before colonisation.

"I'm very, very deliberate in the way that we presented this documentary," Mr Satour said.

"It's not about what's written in the history books, because if you read the history books, you will get confused, and it's not clear what the history was. But if you go and speak to people from these communities — Elders are very specific about what happened...to do with specific details."

To make the film, GARUWA collaborated with representatives from ten Central Desert communities and conducted oral history interviews focusing on the Barrow Creek and Tennant Creek Telegraph Stations — sites with deep and often painful histories.

Among the stories shared is that of Kaytetye Senior Elder Tommy "Walkabout" Jangala, who recounts how telegraph line workers violated Kaytetye law in their treatment of women. In retribution, two workers were speared — an event now remembered as the Barrow Creek Massacre.

Mr Satour says these stories have long been known in local communities, but have rarely been acknowledged in Western historical accounts.

For some communities, the Telegraph Line also marked the first time they encountered non-Indigenous people. One man in the film describes how his Elders viewed these newcomers as something otherworldly — as spirits and ghosts.

"It was the first time that they'd seen white people, and that's the way that they were framing them," Mr Satour said.

With sweeping shots of Country, The Truth About the Telegraph paints a rarely told picture of the colonial expansion across Central Australia — highlighting land dispossession, violence, and the silencing of Traditional Owners' voices.

But it is also a story of survival. From the initial frontier violence through to the forced removals of children, the film shows the unbroken strength of Aboriginal people in holding onto their truth, their culture, and their history — despite generations of attempted erasure.

The Truth About the Telegraph can be viewed online.