https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/Colour%20TV%20Mega%20Menu%203%20TVs_1000x745%20px.jpg
Finding Jedda: The Chauvels are looking for Jedda
Title:
Finding Jedda: The Chauvels are looking for Jedda
NFSA ID
1655922
Year
2021
Courtesy
Orange Entertainment Co., Since1788 Films, Unless Pictures
Warnings
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that the following program may contain images and/or audio of deceased persons
Filmmakers Elsa and Charles Chauvel (Marta Dusseldorp and Ben Winspear) are introduced to the schoolgirls at St Mary’s Anglican Home in Alice Springs.
They – along with the nuns – are excited to announce that they are filming Australia’s first full colour film and are there to audition the girls for a leading role.
Betty (Amarlie Briscoe) wants to audition but Rosalie (Siobahn Breadan) has zero interest in the opportunity.
Summary by Amal Awad
Winner of Best Short Film at the 2022 AACTA Awards, Finding Jedda is writer/director Tanith Glynn-Maloney's ode to Jedda (1955), the first Australian film to feature First Nations actors in the leading roles. More specifically, it’s a tribute to the star of the film, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, who played Jedda (in her only acting role), alongside Robert Tudawali as Marbuck.
It’s 1953, and Rosalie (Siobahn Breadan) and her best friend Betty (Amarlie Briscoe) are adolescent schoolgirls at St Mary's Anglican Home in Alice Springs. They live under the strict rule of the nuns, but their daily routine is disrupted by the arrival of filmmakers Elsa and Charles Chauvel (Marta Dusseldorp and Ben Winspear). They are looking for their Jedda and boast that this will be the the first full-length colour feature filmed in Australia.
Shot beautifully by cinematographer Tyson Perkins, this sweet short film is a brief encounter with Rosalie in this imagining of the audition process for a film that continues to be viewed to this day, remembered not only for its stars but for its reflection of an ugly period in history for First Nations people.
It is important to note that, while the attitudes and language towards First Nations people depicted in the film Finding Jedda are offensive and racist, they are an accurate representation of the time and historically important to acknowledge.
Notes by Amal Awad
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.