Rachel Perkins never set out to be a filmmaker. “I stumbled into
it,” she admits. “It wasn’t something that I had in mind.” But in
1988, she was given the opportunity to take up a traineeship
in Alice Springs with the Central Australian Aboriginal Media
Association, and hasn’t looked back. It was then, at just 18 years
of age, that she discovered the power of filmmaking: “The way
that cinema can capture and communicate to millions of people
...that was the idea I found really intoxicating,” she says. “As an
indigenous person, we’ve been left to the margins of society and
storytelling, so cinema and television felt to me like [a] way that we
can get other Australians, our fellow Australians, to understand
our people.” Yet establishing herself was no easy task, for despite
there being opportunities for women and indigenous people in the
burgeoning Australian film industry, “we had to really fight for a
place in it”, she says.
In 1992, Perkins created Blackfella Films, a productioncompany with a particular focus on the stories of Indigenous
Australians. She has since directed acclaimed titles including
AFI-award nominated Radiance (1998), One Night The Moon
(2 0 01), Bran Nue Dae (2009) and this year’s Jasper Jones.
Perkins also worked as a commissioner with the Australian Film
Commission from 2004 to 2008, and joined the board of Screen
Australia in 2009. With a career spanning almost 30 years,
Perkins, 47, hesitates to choose a highlight—“Honestly, the whole
thing has been a highlight”—and says what continues to drive her
is cinema’s ability to “open hearts, change minds, and bring people
together”. And while she acknowledges progress has been made, she
says Australia still has a long way to go in both reconciling its history
and determining its future. “That’s a challenge I’ve been dealing
with for a long time, but I think we’ll get there and I think our
country will be a better place for it when we do.”
W hile her focus has been on sharing the stories of the
indigenous community, Perkins, of the Arrernte and Kalkadoon
nations, refuses to be defined by it: “I am many things, I have many
other nationalities in my ethnic make-up that I’m very proud of,”
she says. “Being an indigenous filmmaker is a great thing but it
should never be a limitation—you’re a human being and I think you
should be able to tell any story in any context in the world.”
Fork in the road: “The best piece of advice was given to me by my
dad [who] said if you are given two choices in life, always take the
hard one. It may be tough but you will grow through the process.”
Past, present and future: “This year is the 50th anniversary
of the 1967 referendum and we have an opportunity as a nation
to resolve, both symbolically and practically, the relationship
between indigenous [people] and our fellow Australians.”
-SOPHIE GOULOPOULOS“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL THING
FOR ME WHEN PEOPLE
ARE MOVED AND
TRANSPORTED BY
SOMETHING THAT
I’VE HELPED CREATE”