Dena Curtis is an Australian film producer and director. She is known for writing and directing several short films, and directed the first series of

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

comedy series ''

8MMM Aboriginal Radio ''8MMM Aboriginal Radio'' (''8MMM''), pronounced "8 Triple M", is a 2015 Australian television comedy series. Synopsis The six-part series is set in a remote radio station whose Aboriginal crew air the day-to-day preoccupations of Alice Spring ...

'' in 2015. She co-developed and co- produced the 2018 children's TV series ''

Grace Beside Me ''Grace Beside Me'' is an Australian fantasy drama television series for children which premiered on NITV on 16 February 2018 and later aired on ABC Me. The series is based on the novel ''Grace Beside Me'', by Sue McPherson, and was filmed in ...

'', and co-produced the documentary series ''First Weapons'' (2023) and ''

Firebite ''Firebite'' is an Australian drama/horror television series featuring vampires created by Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher. A co-production between See-Saw Films and AMC Studios, the series premiered on AMC+ on 16 December 2021 and r ...

'' (2024). She is the owner of production company Inkey Media in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Early life and education

Dena Curtis is from

Central Australia Central Australia, also sometimes referred to as the Red Centre, is an inexactly defined region associated with the geographic centre of Australia. In its narrowest sense it describes a region that is limited to the town of Alice Springs and ...

, and is of the Warrumungu, Warlpiri and

Arrernte Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia. It may refer to: * Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?) * Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...

peoples. After completing school, Curtis worked as a media officer at the local language centre in

Tennant Creek Tennant Creek () is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the Northern Territory#Cities and towns, seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with ...

, a small town in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. She was offered a traineeship, which led her to working with a film crew from

Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association The Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) is an organisation founded in 1980 to expose Aboriginal music and culture to the rest of Australia. It started with 8KIN-FM, the first Aboriginal radio station in the country. Based in ...

(CAAMA) who were filming in the town. Some months later CAAMA encouraged her to apply for a role as production assistant. She was hired for the role, working for CAAMA Productions in

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

before moving to

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

to undertake studies in film. In 2002, Curtis graduated from the

Australian Film Television and Radio School The Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), formerly Australian Film and Television School, is Australia's national screen arts and broadcast school. Opened to students in 1973 as Film and Television School (FTS), after accredita ...

(AFTRS) in

with a Graduate Diploma (Film & Television) in Television Editing.

Career

After graduating from AFTRS, Curtis returned to work at CAAMA Productions for several years. Her editing credits include ''Rosalie's Journey'', ''Lore of Love'', and ''Willaberta Jack'', as well as a documentary called ''Cheeky Dog'', which she also directed. She also directed the documentary short ''Eight Ladies'', released in 2010, which follows eight women from Alyawarr country in the

Sandover River The Sandover River is an ephemeral river in the Northern Territory of Australia located in northeast Central Australia. It is the only major tributary of the Georgina River that does not rise in western Queensland. Instead it flows from the e ...

region who travel into the bush for five days to hunt and gather

bush food Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and historically eaten by Indigenous Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora, fauna, or fungi used for culinary or medicinal ...

s. A digital, fully-restored version of the film was shown as one of four to be shown at a special event mounted by the Cinema Reborn film festival in October 2021. Her first fully-funded short film was ''Hush'', a five-minute narrative film written and directed by Curtis starring Aboriginal country music singer

Auriel Andrew Auriel Marie Andrew (1947 – 2 January 2017) was an Australian country music singer from the Northern Territory. She was the first Aboriginal woman to appear on Australian television. Early life Auriel Marie Andrew was born in 1947 in Dar ...

, in 2007. It was one of a series called ''Bit of Black Business'', which showcased Indigenous Australian filmmakers. Her second short film, ''Jacob'', premiered at the

Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival Message Sticks Festival, also known for some time as Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival, was an arts festival celebrating the culture of Aboriginal Australians, based at the Sydney Opera House, between 1999 and 2013. It focused on film for ...

in 2009, and screened at the

Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venic ...

, the WOW Film Festival, Shorts Film Festival in

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

, and several international festivals. Curtis wrote and directed the film, while

Darren Dale Darren Dale is an Indigenous Australian film and television producer. He joined film production company Blackfella Films as a producer and later co-director (with founder Rachel Perkins), and is managing director. Dale is known for co-producin ...

Blackfella Films Blackfella Films is an Australian documentary and narrative film production company headquartered in Sydney, founded in 1992 by Rachel Perkins. The company produces Australian short and feature-length content for film and television with a part ...

produced it. The dialogue was in Warrumungu, with English subtitles. Set in around 1940 in Central Australia, the 12-minute film tackled the most serious subject matter she had so far attempted. Jacob is the product of the rape of his mother, Gina, by a white man, and Gina suffers from post-natal depression. Curtis drew on a stories from her own family history for the film, and said that "I want the audience to see proud Indigenous men and the lives they once lived". According to Alexandra Garcia in a 2018 article: "Curtis' exploration throughout Jacob of poor mental health as a result of sexual abuse, as well as life for Indigenous citizens during the Stolen Generations, is no doubt the most heartbreaking, honest and confronting eleven minutes of film to hit Australian television screens in recent times." In April 2018, the film was re-aired by

NITV National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the six-day-a-week ''NITV News Updat ...

as part of its ''The New Black'' series, a compilation of short films by Indigenous filmmakers relating to culture, country, and history. Text may have been copied from this source, which is available under
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
licence. Curtis then moved back to Sydney to work at

National Indigenous Television National Indigenous Television (NITV) is an Australian free-to-air television channel that broadcasts programming produced and presented largely by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It includes the six-day-a-week ''NITV News Updat ...

(NITV) as a senior editor and promo producer. After this she worked for

, first as series producer for ''

Message Stick ''Message Stick'' was an Australian television series about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lifestyles, culture and issues. History The weekly half-hour show began screening in 1999 on ABC Television. It featured profile stories, inte ...

'', and then as a commissioning editor. In this role she oversaw the production and development of '' The Darkside'', ''

Yagan Yagan (; – 11 July 1833) was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation aft ...

'', ''Buckskin'' (2013; about

Kaurna language Kaurna ( or ) is a Pama-Nyungan language historically spoken by the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. The Kaurna peoples are made up of various tribal clan groups, each with their own ''parnkarra'' district of land and ...

teacher Jack Buckskin, directed by

Dylan River Dylan River (born ), also credited as Dylan River Glynn McDonald, is an Australian film director, writer, and cinematographer. He co-wrote and directed the series ''Robbie Hood'' in 2019, and is known for his as cinematographer on the 2020 se ...

and Glynn McDonald), ''The Redfern Story'', ''Outside Chance'', and ''Wild Kitchen''. In 2015 she formed her own production company, Inkey Media, based in Brisbane, and has since worked as writer, director, and producer on many programs. She produced the 2018

ABC Me ABC Entertains is an Australian free-to-air television channel owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It was launched on 4 December 2009 as a children's channel called ABC3. It was rebranded on 19 September 2016 to ABC ME. It rebra ...

children's television series, ''

'', as well as several short films and documentaries. She co-produced the

AMC+ AMC+ is an American subscription video on demand streaming service owned by AMC Networks that was launched on June 11, 2020. The service is a premium bundle that includes the live feeds and program libraries of the company's television networks ...

drama series ''

'' (2021), created by

Warwick Thornton Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. His debut feature film '' Samson and Delilah'' won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awar ...

and Brendan Fletcher. Curtis directed two episodes of the ABC series ''Back to Nature'', a segment of the 2022 anthology feature '' We Are Still Here'', and feature-length documentary ''A League of Her Own'' (2021), about women's

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

team the

Queensland Maroons The Queensland rugby league team represents the Australian state of Queensland in rugby league football. Nicknamed the "Maroons" after the colour of their jersey, they play three times a year against arch-rivals New South Wales rugby league tea ...

. She is executive producer and co-producer (with Citt Williams) on the 2023 four-part NITV documentary series '' Rebel With a Cause'', which screened at the

. The series tells the stories of four famous Indigenous people:

Pat O'Shane Patricia June O'Shane (born 1941) is a retired Australian teacher, barrister, public servant, jurist, and Aboriginal activist. She was Australia's first Aboriginal magistrate, serving the Local Court in Sydney, New South Wales, between 1986 u ...

Neville Bonner Neville Thomas Bonner AO (28 March 19225 February 1999) was an Australian politician, and the first Aboriginal Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia. He was appointed by the Queensland Parliament to fill a casual vacancy ...

Oodgeroo Noonuccal Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( ; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker (3 November 192016 September 1993) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for ...

, and

Tiga Bayles Harold James Phillip "Tiga" Bayles (6 October 1953 – 17 April 2016) was an Indigenous Australian radio presenter and activist. He was a descendent of the Birri Gubba and Gungalu nations of Queensland. He was raised in Theodore, Queensland, the ...

. Also in 2023 she co-produced (with

) and co-wrote (with Jacob Hickey) the documentary series ''First Weapons'' for the ABC. Directed by Dean Gibson and hosted by Phil Breslin, the series looks at the complex scientific principles behind traditional Aboriginal weapons, discussing and testing them with weapon makers and scientific experts. Curtis said in an interview during

NAIDOC Week NAIDOC Week ( ) is an Australian observance lasting from the first Sunday in July until the following Sunday. The acronym NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee. NAIDOC Week has its roots in the 1938 Day o ...

in 2024:

Other activities

Curtis has mentored emerging filmmakers, and participated in many development workshops supporting their careers. She has facilitated Screen Australia's Indigenous Producer Program, a national initiative, as well as the 2020 "Make it FNQ: Creating Screen Stories" initiative supported by Screenworks and

Screen Queensland Screen Queensland is an agency of the Queensland Government which seeks to expand the production of movies, television series, and computer games within Queensland, Australia. It provides financial support to attract producers to use Queensland a ...

for first-time and early First Nations filmmakers in

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns, Queensland, Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stret ...

. Curtis was a guest speaker at the

Australian International Documentary Conference The Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) is an Australian conference for the promotion of documentary, factual and unscripted screen content, regarded as one of two major national conferences for filmmakers. History First esta ...

in 2023 and 2024. In July 2024, she was a guest speaker at the inaugural "Regionality Sunshine Coast" documentary and factual filmmaking event.

Recognition and awards

*2008: Winner, Audience Award for Best Foreign Short Film, Films de Femmes, Créteil *2009: Winner, ''Jacob'', Best Australian Fiction, at Adelaide Shorts Film Festival *2009: Nominated, ''Jacob'', Best Short Drama, WOW Film Festival *2010: Winner, ''Jacob'', Gold Shorts Award at Flickerfest International Short Film Festival *2010: Winner, ''Jacob'',

Australian Cinematographers Society The Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1958 for the purpose of providing a forum for Australian cinematographers to further develop their skills through mutual co-operation. History The Austral ...

National Awards, Award for Best Fictional Drama Short – Murray Lui (cinematographer) *2018: Winner, ''

'', Children's Series Production of the Year, at the

Screen Producers Australia Awards Screen Producers Australia (SPA), formerly the Screen Producers' Association of Australia (SPAA) and earlier names, is a national organisation representing film production businesses, emerging producers, service providers and screen industry supp ...

*2018: Nominated, ''Grace Beside Me'',

AACTA Award The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industry, ...

for Best Children's Program *2022: Winner, '' We Are Still Here'', Dramatic Feature Award at the

ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Aboriginal and First Peoples ...

in Canada In 2024, Curtis was named as one of the participants in the Global Producers Exchange, a program hosted by

Screen Australia Screen Australia is the Australian Federal Government's key funding body for the Australian screen production industry, created under the ''Screen Australia Act 2008''. From 1 July 2008 Screen Australia took over the functions of its predecess ...

and

Australians in Film Australians in Film (AiF) is a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization that serves the Australian community working in the film and television industry. It awards the annual Heath Ledger Scholarship to emerging Australian actors, as well as sev ...

that supports the development of Indigenous and cultural stories with internationally based collaborators.

Footnotes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Dena Arrernte people Warlpiri people Indigenous Australian filmmakers Living people Australian film producers Australian film directors Australian women film directors Australian television producers Australian women television producers Australian television directors Australian women television directors Australian women company founders Australian film production company founders 21st-century Australian women Australian women film editors Year of birth missing (living people)