As a filmmaker commissioned to produce community narrative films, I frequently work in partnership with Indigenous communities. The following essay is based on philosophical perspectives gathered from encounters with Indigenous elders and community leaders during several years of intensive Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander cultural awareness studies and creative collaboration. In accordance with, and with respect for an Indigenous cultural frame of reference, the majority of the included citations are drawn from speeches and interviews conducted with Indigenous elders and cultural educators during the course of film production field research. The scholarly purpose for this paper is to punctuate the trajectory of ongoing grounded theory research, reporting on key, cultural aspects of production field research in a linear, and largely non-critical reflection, purely as a means of advancing the understanding of intercultural relations in the process of developing an autoethnography of theoretical contextualisation.