RACHEL PERKINS & DEBRA DANK IN-CONVERSATION WITH WESLEY ENOCH

Rachel Perkins
Australian film director & television producer

Rachel Perkins is a proud Arrente and Kalkadoon woman, with German and Irish heritage and is one of Australia’s most significant storytellers. She is a writer, director and producer of award-winning television drama, documentaries and feature films, such as; The Australian Wars series, Total Control, Bran Nue Dae, Radiance, Redfern Now, Mabo, Mystery Road, and First Australians. Through her career spanning over 30 years in film and media, Rachel has become an educator, leader, and mentor, inspiring the next generations of First Nations storytellers.

Through her on screen storytelling, Rachel takes us on an essential learning journey of shared histories that we were denied in the classroom. In much of her screen work, Rachel shares our nation’s true shared history through the voices, eyes and stories of our peoples. In 1992, Rachel founded Blackfella Films. A standout achievement for the company was the award-winning 7 part documentary series First Australians. The landmark multi-platform history series, broadcast on SBS Television to over 2.3 million viewers, was accompanied by an internationally acclaimed interactive website. First Australians was awarded Australia’s top honours for documentary including the Australian Film Institute (AFI) and IF Awards, the UN Media Peace Prize, TV Week Logie and Australian Writers and Directors Guild Awards. First Australians has sold throughout the world, and is the highest selling educational title in Australia.  Through truth-telling, we are given the opportunity to acknowledge and grieve for countless crimes committed in the name of colonisation and assimilation.

X: @rachelperkinsau

dr debra dank
author & uniSA enterprise fellow

Dr Debra Dank is a Gudanji/Wakaja and Kalkadoon woman from the Barkly Tablelands in the Northern Territory. Debra is an Enterprise Fellow with the University of South Australia after 40 years working in primary, secondary and tertiary education roles, across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and the Northern Territory in urban and remote contexts.

She is interested in multiform narrative and its practice in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities and the role semiotics plays in that. Her book, We Come with This Place, won numerous awards in 2023, including four NSW Premier’s awards and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Passionate about the environment, her Country, on the Beetaloo Basin, is under threat of being fracked.  

wesley enoch am
writer & director

Wesley Enoch AM has written and directed iconic Indigenous productions The 7 Stages Of Grieving, Black Medea and The Story Of The Miracles At Cookie’s Table. He has directed productions of The Sapphires, Black Diggers, I Am Eora, The Man From Mukinupin, Yibiyung, Parramatta Girls, Black Cockatoo and Appropriate. He was the Artistic Director of the Sydney Festival from 2017 to 2020 and was previously the Artistic Director at Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts and the Ilbijerri Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-operative. Wesley’s other residencies include Resident Director at Sydney Theatre Company; Associate Artistic Director at Belvoir Street Theatre; the 2002 Australia Council Cite Internationale des Arts Residency in Paris and the Australia Council Artistic Director for the Australian Delegation to the 2008 Festival of Pacific Arts. He was creative consultant, segment director and indigenous consultant for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Wesley is currently serving as the QUT Indigenous Chair of Creative Industries.