Koori Dunghutti woman Darlene Johnson is the inaugural recipient of the Sydney Film Festival and Deutsche Bank Fellowship for Australian First Nations Film Creatives.
The fellowship aims to support Australian First Nations Film Creatives further develop their skills through professional development or industry placement.
Darlene Johnson’s documentaries and short films have featured in the Sydney Film Festival (SFF) including River of No Return (SFF 2008); The Redfern Story (SFF 2014), nominated for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award at SFF; and Bluey (SFF 2015), winner of the Event Cinema Australian Short Screenplay Award at SFF.
She said the new fellowship will allow her to continue to develop and expand her skills moving into long-form drama.
“As Indigenous storytellers, we have so much to share with the rest of the world. We need to forge ahead into the future and become real players in the mainstream industry so we can tell our uniquely universal stories for a global audience,” Ms Johnson said.
