A CAIRNS filmmaker has the world in his lens, debuting a movie at the Berlin Film Festival.

Rima Tamou, 46, will be at home at Manunda when his short film First Contact is screened as part of the omnibus film Embargo Project at the international event this week.

Commissioned by Canada’s imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, the project consists of seven short films made by indigenous filmmakers from Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia.

First Contact, filmed near Tully, tells the story of a pair of Aborigines’ first encounter with Europeans on Australian soil.

In this case, the European in question is a cow.

"Yes, it’s a bit of a comedy," Mr Tamou said.

First Contact features non-actors speaking in traditional Girrimae language – a challenge given to him by other filmmakers within the project.

"The group, essentially, puts restrictions on each other. We watch each other’s films and then put limitations on each other," Mr Tamou said.

"The basis was they all had to be in an indigenous language, less than 10 minutes, and use a basic budget of $7000."

Mr Tamou, who is a descendant of the Bulgunwarra people from Cooktown, said it was a challenge for him to work with the Girrimae language of the people of Tully.

"I don’t know the Girrimae language to actually know what they’re saying," he said.

"They were improvising it as well. The plot thickened. I gave them a basic premise of each scene and they together would work the language in post."

Mr Tamou has worked for the ABC creating documentaries for its Message Stick program, and worked as a video journalist on Australia’s only indigenous news and current affairs show, Living Black.

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