Narrabundah’s resident peafowls are strutting the red carpet this Wednesday at Dendy, premiering on the big screen at the Canberra Short Film Festival (they’re used to the limelight, last month they premiered at the Byron Bay Film Festival).

Canberrans may not realise it, but we have bona fide movie stars in our midst. These runaway (or runway) peacocks have already graced TV screens in the UK, USA and Russia and in Australia on The Project on Channel 10.  

Their latest starring role is in a documentary, Lucky Fowl, by Canberra filmmaker Nathan Collett. The short film delves into the heart of Narrabundah’s love-hate relationship with the peafowls and the cinematography is stunning (it received a silver award from the Australia Society of Cinematographers). 

The subject matter of introduced species in Australia may ruffle some feathers but that’s Nathan’s intention.

“It produces a lot of excitement and controversy, heated controversy among the supporters and the non-supporters,” Nathan said. “They are kind of noisy, that’s probably one thing, but I don’t see them as being any more invasive than your average dog. There’s this kind of weird strong reaction that they provoke in people.”

Nathan remains neutral throughout the documentary and shows both perspectives fairly, without bias. He also poses a profound question – what is native in suburbia?

“Who really belongs in Narrabundah? All of us are not native and most of the plants that we plant and the animals that we have are mostly not indigenous,” Nathan said. “It’s kind of interesting and that part is harder to explore. Most of what we have in our so-called built environment is not native.”

The documentary clearly portrays the divisiveness of the peafowls in the local community. For background, there were government plans in 2018 to rehome or euthanise the feral population, but they were called off due to community backlash. Even Chief Minister Andrew Barr signed a petition against his own government’s proposal. The plans to cull the peafowls made international headlines.

“I would consider the idea, is it invasive or not invasive?” Nathan said. “If they were invasive, like the peacocks were running around everywhere like rabbits, then maybe a cull would be something to consider, but are they invasive? Are they destroying everything? Is it chaos or is it just an annoyance for those who don’t like them? I don’t know.”

Nathan is well placed to produce this documentary – he lives in Narrabundah. So do his parents, who use peacock feathers to create wreaths at Christmas. Even a local real estate agent promotes the peacocks in brochures when they advertise Narrabundah properties. Nathan actually met a Sydney couple who had specifically bought a house in Narrabundah because of the peafowls. Peacock feathers also decorate the local daycare centre and public school.

“I think there’s a larger story there about what we value, what we think is important or what we think is not important. That reveals something about who we are,” Nathan said. “They are a non-native species, but we are non-native species. How are we going to co-exist?”

Nathan was hoping for a bit of drama to enhance the film’s plot, but peacocks aren’t predators. They’re prey.

“You need to get a story, you need that conflict and drama but they don’t kill. They’re more prey than they are predators, they’re always going to be subject to the foxes, subject to the cars.”

Nathan tried to convey both sides of the story, however capturing detractors on film proved more difficult than capturing peacocks.

“I talked to [the opposition] a lot off camera and there’s one on-camera confrontation,” Nathan said.

“One community member comes up and confronts me and off-camera we have a bit of a conversation. They said ‘Can you guarantee that people will listen to me’ and I said ‘I can’t guarantee anything but I would love for you to give me a sit-down interview instead of an on-camera confrontation’, but that’s all I got out of that situation.”

Lucky Fowl premieres at Dendy Cinemas on Wednesday 13 November at 6.30pm and on Sunday 17 November 3.30pm. Tickets: csff.com.au/tickets