Rachel Perkins’ Australian Aboriginal heritage has informed her entire filmmaking career. She founded Australia’s premier Indigenous production company Blackfella Films in 1992, and has contributed extensively to the development of Indigenous filmmakers and, more broadly, to the Australian film and television industry. As her latest film, Jasper Jones, hits the big screen we caught up with Rachel and author Craig Silvey, who wrote the best seller that the film is adapted from:
What did you most enjoy about directing Jasper Jones?
Rachel Perkins - Working with the young cast. There is something about working with young people, like an enthusiasm they bring, a positive attitude, and a real interest to do their best and be their best. Actually the film's writer, Craig Silvey, and the cast had four weeks rehearsal together and in that time we really bonded and became this a little unit. We had a lot of fun, and that is a great thing, because film production is often really stressful. Their youthfulness and joy just took all of that stress out of the production and made it a lot more fun.
Both the film and the book explore difficult themes like racism, sexual abuse and betrayal. When you started to develop the film, did you have any ideas about what messages you wanted a viewing audience to take away?
Rachel Perkins - Craig Silvey has talked about a big theme of the film being empathy. Charlie, the main character, has a lot of empathy for Jasper who literally drags him into another world that he didn’t realise existed. Charlie’s ability to empathise with the character of Jasper and befriend him and seek justice is special. A lot of people never put themselves in other people's shoes. It is that wish for people to be more empathetic, and understand each other, which forms a large thematic element of this work.
The character of Jeffrey has a bigger role in the book than in the film adaptation. Can you tell us why his role got less airtime in the films?
Rachel Perkins - The film is an adaptation, so you can’t fit everything in, there’s just no way. I would have loved to have more of Jeffrey. In the film Jeffrey is there to illustrate a certain point, but essentially it is the story of Charlie. Unfortunately, in adaptation, some things have to go or be reduced.
Why was it important to you to bring Jasper Jones to the big screen?
Craig Silvey – For me it was an opportunity to tell this story in a different way and to introduce it to a new audience. I had the great privilege of seeing the stage adaptation of Jasper Jones so I knew there was an appetite from people to see a different kind of story telling. I came to understand and appreciate the beauty in the different methods of telling a story and had a great sense of excitement and challenge to bring this story to screen.
What we felt most daunted by was respecting the passion of the book's readership and wanting to present a film that stayed true to the spirit of the novel, while also giving it its own depth. I am really proud of the film that we made.
What did you most enjoy about seeing your novel brought to life in film?
Craig - The most enjoyable part of this process, and there have been many, is having the opportunity to be part of a film crew, to watch these scenes come to life, to see how much passion everybody brought to the project. Everybody believed in this story and everybody applied their considerable talents, with such energy! That was really inspiring. As a film crew you go through such an amazing journey together.
Outside of Australia what are your distribution plans for the film?
Rachel Perkins - Well I don’t actually know! I think we’ll take it to the market and try and sell it. It’s already been to the Berlin film market, but at the moment, I’m just thinking about Australia. For me the film is made for Australia, that’s my priority. If it does well here I’ll be very happy with that and the rest will be icing on the cake.
One of the goals in your career has been to improve the representation of Indigenous people on screen as well as the participation of Indigenous people in the industry. What advice would you give people in other minorities to achieve self-representation? Do you think there are still improvements that need to be made in the way Indigenous people are represented on screen?
I would say get organised, you have to get organised. What we did was we form little cooperatives, lobby groups and we basically pressured and lobbied for funds and opportunities. It is hard to do things as an individual but when you have a committee of ten people and you meet regularly, you can write policy, you can do meetings, and you can be organised and set targets.
BlackFella films has been everywhere over the last year, aside from Jasper Jones what are your plans for 2017?
Rachel Perkins - We have a lot of new projects on the horizon and we are back into development. We have been making so much content recently. Now we can take our foot off the pedal and head into a development period, which is the most creative time. There will be shows at the end of the year.
Can you share with us your thoughts about gender bias in the industry and what could be changed?
I have always felt equal and haven’t had a issue with gender bias but obviously the industry still reflects that. I think in time it will be a period we will be able to look back on, and not even believe that it was ever like that. We are in a period of transition, women are moving into all areas of the world in all industries and soon it will be accepted and the norm. It won’t be long.
More on Jasper Jones here: https://www.facebook.com/jasperjonesfilm/
