Background
Perkins was born in Canberra in 1970. She is a daughter of Charlie Perkins and granddaughter of Hetty Perkins, and has Arrernte, Kalkadoon, and German ancestry.
Perkins was born in Canberra in 1970. She is a daughter of Charlie Perkins and granddaughter of Hetty Perkins, and has Arrernte, Kalkadoon, and German ancestry.
She is known for her films Bran Nue Dae (2010), Radiance (1998) and One Night the Moon (2001). Perkins is an Arrernte woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by Eileen and Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins. Her sister is Hetti Perkins, an art curator.
At the age of 18 Perkins moved to Alice Springs and entered into a traineeship at the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association.
In 1992 Perkins founded Blackfella Films, a documentary and narrative production company creating distinctive Australian content for television, live theatre, and online platforms, with a particular focus on Indigenous Australian stories. Its productions have included multi-award winning seven-part documentary series First Australians, television film Mabo, and television series Redfern Now.
She served a Commissioner with the Australian Film Commission from 2004 to 2008, and since 2009 has been on the board of Screen Australia. She was also curator for the 2009 Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival.
This tenth anniversary of the festival held at the Sydney Opera House featured the premiere of Fire Talker, a documentary film about her father Charlie Perkins by Australian filmmaker Ivan Senator.