A Sydney-based 17-year-old Indigenous filmmaker has won the inaugural First Nations Award and the best female creative in the Aussie Smartphone Filmmakers Scoop Awards, for her film eight minutes, forty-six seconds, which focuses on Indigenous deaths in custody.
Kara Rose is a Smartfone Flick Fest 3 veteran with more than 12 films to her name.
Having filmed eight minutes, forty-six seconds when she was 15, Ms Rose said she was inspired after she watched a video of George Floyd.
"The same is happening to indigenous people in Australia and it hasn't been talked about at all," she said.
"A similar incident happened to an indigenous man called David Dungay, who said I can't breathe just like Floyd, and it hasn't been spoken about at all."
Discussing Aboriginal deaths in custody, Ms Rose believes the government should do more for the Aboriginal community.
"The government should be more accepting of aboriginal people, and we shouldn't be mistreated for being a part of that community," she said.
With a strong sense of social justice, Ms Rose believes making films is the best way to put out one's voice.
"It is very important for me as indigenous woman to tell the stories of my own people and spread a message through my films," she said.
Ms Rose is currently working on a documentary on how indigenous artists and singers, and how their songs, especially protest songs have made a change in history.
In Australia, 475 Aboriginal people have died in custody since the end of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
- By Karuna Balasubramanian
