SCREEN AUSTRALIA’S INDIGENOUS DEPARTMENT TURNS 25

Featured pic Penny Smallacombe. Head of the Indigenous Department at Screen Australia. All pics Ben Apfelbaum.

Indigenous screen industry veterans and emerging artists came together this week at Carriageworks, Redfern to celebrate 25 years of Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department.

In attendance were director Rachel Perkins (Mystery Road TV series, Bran Nue Dae), director and actor Leah Purcell (Redfern NowWentworth), and directors Ivan Sen (Mystery RoadGoldstone), Dylan River (Nulla Nulla) and Warwick Thornton (Samson & DelilahSweet Country).j

The screen creatives were joined by audience favourites Rob Collins (Cleverman), Elaine Crombie (8MMMKiki and Kitty), Aaron Fa’Aoso (Little J & Big CuzThe Straits), Hunter Page-Lochard (SpearCleverman) and Tasia Zalar (Mystery Road TV series, The Warriors).

Since its inception the Indigenous Department has presided over $35m in funding for the development, production and talent escalation. A hallmark of the Department has been to put indigenous people in control of their own stories. and it has meant that indigenous characters have been much more visible on screen.

“When Wal Saunders set up the Indigenous Department in 1993, it would have been unthinkable that over 160 First Nations screen stories would end up being made. Twenty five years later, it’s unthinkable to imagine the Australian screen industry without our Indigenous stories and the people who tell them,” said Penny Smallacombe the Head of the Indigenous Department at Screen Australia. This anniversary is an incredibly special moment in Australia’s cultural history, and one that Indigenous people can treasure.”

“Today I looked around the room and saw 25 years of progress personified. For instance, Warwick Thornton and Rachel Perkins were part of the very first short film series funded by the Indigenous Department, and a quarter of century later Warwick is a Caméra d’Or-winning director and Rachel just helmed the most successful ABC iview drama in history – Mystery Road. And significantly, new names such as Dylan River and Tasia Zalar have worked on projects from both Warwick and Rachel, so we’re seeing generational and sustained changed. I cannot tell you how significant that is, knowing that young Indigenous people will grow up seeing themselves on screen.”

Screen luminary Leah Purcell also spoke, noting, “Our screen stories shape how we view ourselves and each other. What you see guides how you think. Now ‘mainstream’ Australia is seeing more authentic, diverse, real Indigenous Australians.”

“Now more of our mobs are writing, directing, acting, producing and creating and I am very fortunate and proud to be one of them and part of this great movement made possible by Screen Australia and its Indigenous Department. The Indigenous Department and its work are a policy success we need to celebrate and advance.”