Rachel Perkins on the power of filmmaking

Rachel Perkins finds filmmaking rewarding because it engages the filmmaker on so many different levels and requires a diverse range of skills and knowledge. Perkins also uses filmmaking as a political tool for teaching non-Indigenous audiences about Indigenous culture and contributing to the maintenance of Indigenous culture.

Films can help people to develop understanding and empathy by allowing them to see the world from another perspective. However, as well as engaging with film’s potential for representing an Indigenous point of view, Indigenous filmmakers are motivated by the craft of filmmaking itself, and will increasingly want to tell a broader range of stories and work in other contexts. Perkins’ first feature film, Radiance (1998), featured three Indigenous actors in the main roles, and Indigenous filmmaker Warwick Thornton was the cinematographer. The film was not specifically about Indigenous identity, but issues of culture, history and identity underpinned the story.

Collection Blak Wave