Audrey Napanangka was born at a time when the world was changing for the people in the Central Australian Desert. Settler colonisation was permeating the desert and forced changes and the fusion of two worlds shifted Audrey’s life forever. Today, Audrey, with her Sicilian husband Santo, raises young people to walk in many worlds, by centering culture, language, and Law in their lives alongside mainstream education. The intimate footage filmed over 10 years in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Yuendumu and Audrey’s Warlpiri country Mount Theo, showcases a heartwarming story about the power of kinship and family in what is known as Australia.
Penny McDonald is an award-winning producer (Buckskin, SFF 2013, My Mother India, SFF 2002, My Bed Your Bed SFF 1992, Night Cries Cannes 1990,) and director (Too Many Captain Cooks SFF 1989). She has worked in the industry for over 35 years.
A directing and producing graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, Penelope has directed documentaries including Too Many Captain Cooks, Travelling Warlpiris and Kamira: Pina Yanirlipa Ngurrarkurra, and the short dramas Life on Earth as I Know It and for television Safe Home.
As a creative producer, she has been closely involved with the story of each production she has been involved with. In 2019 she produced First Nations Bedtime Stories, which aired on NITV. She produced Dylan River’s first documentary, Buckskin, which won the Sydney Film Festival Foxtel Award. She produced Safina Uberoi’s My Mother India, which also won the equivalent award, as well as numerous others nationally and internationally.
Other documentary producing credit’s include Mike Rubbo’s Much Ado About Something and Warwick Thornton’s Photographic Memory. Drama credits include many Indigenous short films, including Warwick Thornton’s first dramatic short Payback, Erica Glynn’s My Bed Your Bed and My Mother My Son, and Tracey Moffatt’s Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy.
She stepped out of direct filmmaking from 2004 to 2016, to be the inaugural director of the Northern Territory Government’s agency Screen Territory.
She has a diverse slate of feature films, documentaries and web series in development.
Her productions can be found at:
www.chilifilms.com.au
