Rachel Perkins' Australian Aboriginal heritage (Arrernte/Kalkadoon) has informed her entire filmmaking career. She founded Australia's premier Indigenous production company Blackfella Films in 1992, and has contributed extensively to the development of Indigenous filmmakers in Australia and, more broadly, to the Australian film and television industry.

Rachel has directed four feature films: Jasper Jones (nominated for Best Film at the 2017 AACTA Awards), as well as Radiance, One Night the Moon (which received 5 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards), and the musical Bran Nue Dae which screened at the Sundance, Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals, and achieved a box office of $7.5 million in Australia. Rachel's films have screened at over 75 film festivals worldwide.

In 2012 Rachel directed the telemovie Mabo, which screened on ABC1 to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic High Court decision. Mabo was nominated for Most Outstanding Mini Series or Telemovie at the 2013 TV Week Logie Awards.

Rachel directed three episodes of the landmark ABC television drama series Redfern Now. The first Australian drama series written, directed and produced by Indigenous Australians, Redfern Now was awarded the 2013 and 2014 TV Week Logies for Most Outstanding Drama Series, and the 2014 AACTA Award for Best Television Drama Series. In 2013 and 2014 Rachel received the Australian Directors Guild (ADG) Awards for Best Direction in a TV Drama Series for her work on Redfern Now. In 2015 she directed the final telemovie instalment of Redfern Now: Promise Me, for which she received the 2015 ADG Award for Best Direction in a TV Drama Series.

In 2018 Rachel directed all 6 episodes of the first season of critical and ratings hit Mystery Road for the ABC.

In 2019 Rachel directed the 6 x 1 hour ABC drama series Total Control for the ABC, which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, won the 2019 AACTA Award for Best TV Drama Series, the 2020 MIPCOM Diversify TV's Excellence Award for Representation of Race and Ethnicity (Scripted) and the 2021 Bronze Award for an Entertainment Program (Drama) at the New York Festivals TV & Flm Awards.

Rachel also wrote, directed and co-produced the seven-hour documentary series First Australians (2008), which received Australia's top honours including AFI and IF Awards, the UN Media Peace Prize, TV Week Logie, and the Writers and Directors Guild of Australia Awards. First Australians has sold throughout the world and is the highest selling educational title in Australia.

In 2014 Rachel completed the documentary Black Panther Woman for SBS, which was a finalist in the Documentary Australia Foundation Award at the Sydney Film Festival.

In 2015 she raised funding from a wide variety of sources for the Arrernte Women's Project, an archival recording of the traditional dances of the Arrernte women of Central Australia as a cultural project to preserve a unique cultural tradition.

Rachel is currently directing and writing First Wars for SBS, a major historical documentary series about the nation's frontier conflicts.

Rachel's other documentary work includes the series Blood Brothers, on which she was one of the writers, directors and producers as well as Spirit to Spirit, an international co-venture of Indigenous partners from New Zealand, Scandinavia, Canada and Australia.

With her Blackfella Films business partner, Darren Dale, Rachel Perkins co-curated the film program for the Message Sticks Indigenous Festival at the Sydney Opera House from 2002 until 2011, and in 2012 presented the curated program of Indigenous films Blackfella Films Presents in partnership with major Australian film festivals. Rachel has also curated the film programs for the Corroboree Sydney Indigenous arts festival and the Garma Indigenous Festival.

Since 2000, Rachel has been Managing Editor and Publisher of The Black Book Indigenous arts directory which is hosted online by Blackfella Films.

Rachel is a Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. She was honoured to receive the inaugural Contribution to Television IF Award at the 2011 Jameson IF Awards. In addition to her experience as an executive producer for both ABC and SBS Television, Rachel has previously served on the Council of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the NSW Film and Television Office (now Screen NSW), the Australia Film Commission, and was a founding member of the National Indigenous Television Service (NITV).

Rachel was a member of the Board of Screen Australia from 2009 to 2013, and a Fellow of The University of Sydney Senate from 2011 to 2013. Rachel currently serves on the Council of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), and the Australian Heritage Council (Department of the Environment and Energy) and, along with other leading Australians active in the corporate, government, Indigenous and philanthropic sectors, Rachel is also on the Board of Jawun, a non-profit organisation which facilitates and manage secondments from the corporate and public sectors to a range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partner organisations in urban, regional and remote communities across Australia.

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Rachel Perkins

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