28 02 2018 - Media release Celebrating 25 years of Indigenous screen stories
Sweet Country, Redfern Now, Occupation Native, Spear
This year marks 25 years since the Indigenous Department at Screen Australia was established, resulting in some of the nation's most beloved films, television shows and documentaries. Over 160 titles have been funded by the Department including Redfern Now, Samson & Delilah, Spear, Mystery Road, Goldstone, Toomelah, 8MMM Aboriginal Radio, and numerous documentaries including We Don't Need a Map, and the historical series First Australians.
The anniversary year has begun with one of the most highly awarded and critically acclaimed works in Screen Australia's history - Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country, in cinemas now. The hotly anticipated television adaption of Mystery Road will air on the ABC later this year, starring Aaron Pedersen, Deborah Mailman and Judy Davis. The documentary Black Divaz chronicles the lives of Indigenous drag performers and will premiere at Queer Screen's Mardi Gras Film Festival tonight before being seen on NITV on 1 March.
As Screen Australia celebrates 25 years of our Indigenous Department, we acknowledge everything we have achieved has been the result of a shared dream, said Penny Smallacombe, Head of Indigenous. SBS, NITV, the ABC, AFTRS and other Indigenous organisations like CAAMA have all been on this incredible journey and together we have gone from a place where we were absent from screens, or stories were told about us, to being able to tell our own stories.
Our faces are now routinely seen on television. Our languages are heard at the cinema. Our stories are now shared online with people around the world. Our work is celebrated at internationals festivals, treasured at home and has become a cultural and commercial resource for our people.
In August the anniversary will be formally recognised with a function in Sydney, with guests attending from around Australia.
Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason added, Twenty-five years of work by our Indigenous Department has not only given Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a voice, but has given our industry some of the most distinct and acclaimed storytellers in our history.
Indigenous creativity has gone from being excluded from our screen sector to becoming an essential part of our day-to-day business. From television to cinema to online, across documentary and drama, and both on screen and behind the camera, the incredible body of work created by Indigenous talent is truly something to celebrate.
Planning for the next 25 years of the Department has commenced with the formation of the Indigenous Strategic Reference Group, including industry veterans Darren Dale, Rachel Perkins, Erica Glynn, Dot West and Deborah Mailman. The group first convened earlier this month in Sydney, with other members joining the next sessions in Cairns (July) and Melbourne (Dec).
Further information regarding the Indigenous Strategic Reference Group and the anniversary event will be released in the coming months.
People who have had a connection with the Indigenous Department over the years are encouraged to get in touch ahead of the anniversary event by emailing Savannah Glynn-Braun
INDIGENOUS DEPARTMENT ABRIDGED HISTORY Since its inception, the Indigenous Department has provided over $35m in funding for development, production and talent escalation, with over 160 titles having hit screens in that period. The model has been so successful it has recently been replicated in Canada.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programme' (and later called the Indigenous Branch') was established in 1993, as a result of consultation with the Indigenous community conducted by the Australian Film Commission in the previous year. On 25 June 1993, Walter Saunders was announced as the inaugural Manager of the Department and the watershed From Sand To Celluloid initiative was developed. Six Indigenous creatives were funded to make their own short films, including a very young Warwick Thornton. The films premiered at the Chauvel Cinema in Sydney in 1996.
The Department secured its own discrete funding budget from 1996/97. From 2001/02 the Department split documentary and drama funding and from 2006/07 started making large investments in feature films. From humble beginnings, the Department now awards over $3m in funding annually. On average the Department has funded eight titles a year to go into production.
A hallmark of the Department has been to put Indigenous people in control of their own stories, and as such Department production funding only goes to titles with both an Indigenous director and writer attached (or lead writer in the case of television). As the careers of Indigenous creatives have grown, it has become common for their talents to be seen in projects funded through different streams within Screen Australia, such Ryan Griffen creating Cleverman, Rachel Perkins directing Jasper Jones, Wayne Blair directing The Sapphires and Leah Purcell being one of the directors on The Secret Daughter.
Over the years the Department has also been involved in setting industry guidelines for genuine Indigenous consultation and navigating intellectual property rights.
The Indigenous Department has also had a dramatic impact on the visibility of Indigenous characters on screen. A 2002 study entitled Broadcast in Colour found that in 1992 there were no Indigenous Australians in sustaining roles on Australian TV, and by 1999 there were two. Screen Australia's 2016 study Seeing Ourselves revealed a remarkable shift, with 5% of main characters being Indigenous, despite making up 3% of the population. The 5% figure matched exactly to the proportion of Indigenous actors in the period, suggesting authentic casting of Indigenous actors in Indigenous roles.
Celebrat
Asia, Australia & Oceanic Stories
18/04/2024
Alone Australia goes from strength to strength
18 April, 2024
Media releases
The program again delivers for SBS with significant uplifts in digital BVOD vi...
18/04/2024
18 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and Dynamic Television announce new Scripted Initiative
Savage River
Screen Australia and Los Angeles-based telev...
16/04/2024
ABS Agility Beyond Space announces Appointment of Mark Rigolle as its Chief Ex...
11/04/2024
Alone Australia Ep 2 reaches over 1m Australians
11 April, 2024
Media releases
The program continues to consistently grow week-on-week in linear audience w...
11/04/2024
11 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and Meta launch fourth year of First...
10/04/2024
10 04 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces over $2.3 million for nine documentaries
Guardians of the River
Screen Australia has announced nine doc...
09/04/2024
Groundbreaking NITV documentary series Our Law expands across Australia from Thu...
09/04/2024
Techtel, the creators of inflo, today announced that a new speech to text transcription engine from openai called Whisper, is available to inflo customers who a...
04/04/2024
Manu Feildel, Miranda Otto and Pat Rafter join life-changing new season of Who D...
04/04/2024
Alone Australia season 2 continues to redefine Australian TV viewing through on-...
27/03/2024
Living Black, the longest-running Indigenous current affairs television program ...
26/03/2024
Crime is relative in SBS's new Canneseries nominated crime-family drama with...
25/03/2024
SBS gears up for Season 2 of Alone Australia with the creation of Alone Cologne...
22/03/2024
SBS Learn partners with the Islamic Museum of Australia to support classrooms in...
21/03/2024
21 03 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces over $1.6 million in support of the games industry
Which Way Up: Galaxy Games
Screen Australia has anno...
18/03/2024
18 03 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and VicScreen launch new Screen Careers initiative
LTR Denise Eriksen, Esther Coleman Hawkins, Caroline Pitcher, K...
15/03/2024
15 03 2024 - Media release The Creators 2024 Participants Announced
The Creators program recipients. L-R Thomas Duncan-Watt, Vanessa Gazy, Sarah Lambert, Lea...
14/03/2024
SBS to mark Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr with all Australians
14 March, 2024
Media releases
Content in 22 languages*, a collection of movies to stream free on d...
14/03/2024
March 14,2024
-- KDDI Corporation
KDDI Corporation resolved at a meeting of the Board of Directors held today to change (newly appointed, retire) a director ...
13/03/2024
13 03 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces dramas Critical Incident and Sunny Nights for Stan
Critical Incident: Akshay Khanna and Zoe Boe. Photo c...
07/03/2024
Explore the afterlife with SBS podcast Grave Matters'
6 March, 2024
Media releases
Most of us are woefully unprepared for one of life's few certai...
06/03/2024
Multi-award winning electronic music duo to represent Australia at this year'...
06/03/2024
Developing Lunar 3GPP Mobile Network Technologies for Moon Exploration
GITA...
04/03/2024
SBS announces new development fund to discover Australia's biggest and riski...
28/02/2024
Yumi Stynes returns for season two of SBS podcast SEEN'
26 February, 2024
Media releases
Eight new trailblazers join feminist Australian icon Yumi Sty...
28/02/2024
28 02 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces over $810,000 in development funding for 29 projects
Willy
Screen Australia has announced 23 feature fi...
27/02/2024
27 02 2024 - Media release Michael Ebeid AM appointed as new Screen Australia Chair
Michael Ebeid AM and Megan Brownlow
The Hon. Minister for the Arts, Tony...
26/02/2024
Supporting AFEELAs entertainment experience and global launch with a communicati...
21/02/2024
21 02 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and Australians in Film Announce App...
21/02/2024
Aiming to deliver new video-related solutions utilizing 5G SA this year
Son...
21/02/2024
Support the team with gifts while enjoying AR games in the stadium
KDDI COR...
21/02/2024
KDDI CORPORATION
February 21,2024
-- Tokyo, February 21, 2024 From February 2...
20/02/2024
KDDI CORPORATION
February 20,2024
-- KDDI announces that its consolidated subsidiary, SORACOM, INC. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Ken Tamagawa, herei...
15/02/2024
Alone Australia Season 2 Returns 27 March | Meet the Cast
15 February, 2024
Media releases
Smash hit series Alone Australia returns Wednesday 27 March on S...
15/02/2024
NITV's flagship footy show Over the Black Dot returns Tuesday 5 March, live ...
15/02/2024
15 02 2024 - Media release Screen Australia announces over $560,000 for crew and gamemaker skills programs
Liz Keogh Palmer (Australian Production Design Guil...
13/02/2024
2024 is a landmark year for SBS's award-winning current affairs line-up, cov...
13/02/2024
22 01 2024 - Media release Six Australian projects bound for South by Southwest Festival in the US
Audrey, Birdeater, The Moogai
Six Australian screen projec...
12/02/2024
12 02 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and YouTube Australia Launch Skip Ahead 9
Uncovering Street Dance: Australia from Skip Ahead 8. Photographed by Ry...
08/02/2024
08 02 2024 - Media release Screen Australia and ABC announce Bay of Fires is back for season two
Marta Dusseldorp as Stella in Bay of Fires
ABC, Screen Austr...
07/02/2024
4 in 10 Australians battling sleep issues as nation's sleep crisis grows
7 February, 2024
Media releases
Dr Michael Mosley and the sleep scientists fro...
06/02/2024
Six screen creatives selected for the 2024 SBS Emerging Writers' Incubator i...
02/02/2024
SBS Scripted TV Lunch sessions return for another year of connecting with creati...
02/02/2024
February 2,2024
-- KDDI Corporation
KDDI announced the financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2024.
Summary In the third q...
31/01/2024
Filming Begins on SBS' Romantic Original Drama Four Years Later' in Ind...
30/01/2024
A stellar 2024 for SBS podcasts kicks off with The SBS Book Club' and Huma...
29/01/2024
The host with the most, Adam Liaw, is back with an all new inviting season of Th...
22/01/2024
Eddie's Lil' Homies premieres on NITV and Netflix on Friday 16 February
22 January, 2024
Media releases
Animated comedy series inspired by AFL grea...
22/01/2024
22 01 2024 - Media release Five Australian projects bound for South by Southwest Festival in the US
Audrey, Birdeater, The Moogai
Five Australian screen proj...
28 02 2018 - Media release Celebrating 25 years of Indigenous screen stories 
