Darren Dale

Darren has been a company director of Blackfella Films, Australia's premier Indigenous production company, since 2000. In 2008 Darren, together with Rachel Perkins, produced the landmark multi-platform history series First Australians for SBS which received many accolades including AFI, TV Week Logie, AWGIE and Australian Director's Guild Awards. In 2011, Darren produced the feature documentary The Tall Man which premiered at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival and screened at TIFF and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and received the inaugural Walkley Award for Documentary. In 2012 Darren and Miranda Dear produced the ABC telemovie Mabo, followed by two seasons and a telemovie of the groundbreaking drama series Redfern Now in collaboration with Emmy Award-winning UK writer Jimmy McGovern. Redfern Now won the TV Week Logie Award for Most Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014, and the 2014 AACTA Award for Best Television Drama Series. The telemovie Redfern Now: Promise Me was broadcast in 2015. In 2014 Darren produced the acclaimed First Contact for SBS which won the 2015 TV Week Logie for Most Outstanding Factual Program. He has also produced the SBS 'big science' series DNA Nation, How 'Mad' Are You? which explores mental health in Australia, a second season of First Contact and three seasons of the award winning Filthy Rich & Homeless. In 2016 Darren produced, with Miranda Dear, the drama series Deep Water accompanied by the feature documentary Deep Water: The Real Story and a multiplatform project for SBS investigating gay hate murders in Sydney. The feature documentary In My Own Words for NITV premiered at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival. Darren was Executive Producer on the 14 x half hour ABC3 teen drama series Ready for This, winner of the 2015 AACTA Award for Best Children's Television Series and the 2016 TV Week Logie Award for Most Outstanding Children's Program. Completed in 2019 was the AACTA Award winning Best Television Drama Total Control for the ABC. Produced with Miranda Dear, it premiered at TIFF and was awarded the 2020 MIPCOM Diversify TV's Excellence Award for Representation of Race and Ethnicity (Scripted), and the Bronze Award for Entertainment Program (Drama) at the 2021 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards. In 2020 Darren completed the third and final season of Filthy Rich & Homeless which won the 2021 BANFF World Media Festival International Rockie Award for Best Docuseries and the Gold Award for Documentary (Social Issues) at the 2021 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards, and also for SBS the major observational series Addicted Australia. For the ABC Darren produced, with Jacob Hickey, the documentary Maralinga Tjarutja which won the 2020 AACTA Award for Best Direction in Nonfiction Television and the Silver Award for Documentary (Human Rights) at the 2021 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards. In 2021, Darren produced for the ABC a second season of Total Control, the feature documentary Step into Paradise about iconic fashion designers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson and Books That Made Us - a 3 part factual series about Australian literature. Currently in production is an adaptation of Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu for the ABC, and for SBS the historical series First Wars about the nation's frontier conflicts. With his Blackfella Films business partner, Rachel Perkins, Darren co-curated the film program for the Message Sticks Indigenous Festival at the Sydney Opera House from 2002 until 2011, and in 2012 presented the curated program of Indigenous films Blackfella Films Presents in partnership with the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane International Film Festivals. Darren is a Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He currently serves on the board of ACMI, the Sydney Film Festival and the Sydney Festival. He was on the board of Screen NSW from 2011 to 2015, the Council of the Australian Film Television and Radio School from 2012 to 2018, with a term as Deputy Chair from 2014 to 2018. In 2012 he was the recipient of the prestigious AFTRS Honorary Degree.