Career
A few years after beginning her traineeship at CAAMA, aged 21, Perkins became executive producer of the Indigenous unit at SBS Television, the only person in the unit.[8]
In 1992, Perkins founded Blackfella Films, a documentary and narrative production company creating distinctive Australian content for television, live theatre, and online platforms, with a particular focus on Indigenous Australian stories. Much of her film work was done under the company name.
Perkins wrote, directed, and co-produced (with Ned Lander) a 55-minute documentary film about her father's 1965 protest bus journey into regional New South Wales, dubbed the "Freedom Ride". The film was called Freedom Ride,[11] and it was part of the 1993 series Blood Brothers, which profiled four prominent Aboriginal men.[12] Perkins said that she travelled with her father to many of the places that the Freedom Ride visited, and it was also a good opportunity to interviewer her father about his early life and get an insight into him and events that she would not otherwise have had access to. She also gained an "understanding of the importance of filmmaking, in terms of capturing Australian cultural history".[8]
In 1996, under the auspices of the Indigenous Branch of the Australian Film Commission, Perkins produced a film for Warwick Thornton (who was also a friend), From Sand to Celluloid – Payback.[8][13]
Radiance (1998) was her first feature fiction film as a director. She said later that it took a long time to cast the main characters, who included Trisha Morton-Thomas, Rachael Maza, and Deb Mailman, then a newcomer from Brisbane, and that they rehearsed for six weeks.[8]
In 2001 she co-wrote (with playwright John Romeril[16]) and directed the telemovie One Night the Moon, featuring musicians Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, and Maireed Hannah.[8]
First Australians was a seven-part documentary series broadcast on SBS Television in 2008. The general manager of SBS Nigel Milan had asked Gordon Briscoe what he could do for Indigenous people, and Briscoe suggested giving them back their history. It was a very ambitious project, and Perkins said that it was the most important thing she would ever work on, "because it really was an opportunity to try and tell the Indigenous story in a comprehensive manner from an Indigenous perspective, over a span of 200 years. It had never been done before".[8] The series took six years to make,[13] and as of 2024 remains the highest-selling educational title in Australia.
Bran Nue Dae, a film version of Jimmy Chi's 1990s hit stage musical, was directed by Perkins and released in 2009.[13]
In 2009 Perkins was curator of the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival. This tenth anniversary of the festival held at the Sydney Opera House featured the premiere of Fire Talker, a documentary film about her father Charlie Perkins by Australian filmmaker Ivan Sen.[17][18]
Her courtroom drama / biopic telemovie about land rights campaigner Eddie Koiki Mabo, Mabo, featuring Jimi Bani and Deborah Mailman, was broadcast in 2012.[13]
Also in 2012 Perkins directed two episodes of the first series of Redfern Now in 2012: "Stand Up" and "Pretty Boy Blue", the latter dealing with a death-in-custody.[13] She also directed the feature-length conclusion Redfern Now: Promise Me (2015).[19] Luke Buckmaster of The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, praising its "superb cast" and saying "the series concludes at the peak of its power".[20]
Perkins executive produced the first series of First Contact (2014), a reality television show which challenged the non-Indigenous participants of Indigenous Australians.[21]
Also in 2014, she finished making the documentary film Black Panther Woman for SBS. The film was nominated for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival.[22]
She directed the feature fiction film Jasper Jones, released in 2017.[23]
Perkins wrote, directed, presented, and produced the three-part documentary series The Australian Wars which aired on SBS and NITV in September 2022. This series examines the Australian frontier wars fought across the country when British settlers moved in.[24][25][26]
Perkins has said that of all the filmmaking jobs, she likes editing the best, as it is the most creative part. She also said that she feels a great sense of responsibility "to make films or to use media as a vehicle to tell my people's story and to create change".[8]
Blackfella Films
Perkins founded Blackfella Films in 1992.
Darren Dale joined the company in 2000, becoming co-director of the company. The award-winning First Australians, a seven-part documentary series broadcast on SBS Television in 2008, won many awards and was also sold overseas. Miranda Dear, formerly head of drama at ABC Television, was a producer and head of drama at Blackfella from 2010 to 2020.[27] Other productions have included the television film Mabo, the TV series Redfern Now, and many more since.[28] In 2009, Blackfella Films was renting space from Bangarra Dance Theatre in offices overlooking Sydney Harbour.[8]
In 2022, Perkins left Blackfella Films.[27]
