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You might know Rosalie Kunoth-Monks as the 2015 NAIDOC person of the year, or the powerhouse of activism who delivered a stirring speech on Q&A a couple of years ago.
But many don't know she first came to national attention as an actor, when she became the first Indigenous Australian woman to play a leading role in a feature film.
Kunoth-Monks — an Arrernte and Amatjerre woman born in Utopia, north of Alice Springs, in 1937 — was just a teenager when she was cast as Jedda in the film of the same name.
Jedda, released in 1955 and made by Australian director Charles Chauvel, was a first in several ways: it was the first Australian film to show at Cannes and the first Australian feature released in colour.
But it's the film's now confronting depiction of First Nations people that keeps it a regular fixture in the Australian cultural conversation.
The character of Jedda is a young Aboriginal orphan, brought up by a white woman who is unable to have her own children.
Jedda's otherwise quiet life on a station in the Northern Territory is disrupted down by the arrival of the mysterious Marbuck, played by Robert Tudawali, who "leads her astray" and, eventually, to tragedy.
Kunoth-Monks' subtle and complex portrayal of Jedda is the film's animating force, but being cast in the role was also an animating force in the young actor's own life.
From student to screen star
Though it was to become a defining moment, Kunoth-Monks thinks of her involvement with Jedda as the result of an arbitrary decision.
"The Chauvels selected young Aboriginal girls from around Australia, and we all ended up at Coolibah station going before the camera," she says.
"I think it was Mrs Chauvel [Charles' wife and lifelong collaborator Elsa] who kept coming back and saying, 'Charles, I like the look of this one,' as though I was a horse."
Kunoth-Monks spent her early childhood in Utopia, then a livestock station, where she was brought up by her mother, an Amatjerre woman, and her father, who had both European and Arrernte heritage.
She grew up speaking in language, with a strong connection to her culture.
When she was 10 she was sent to school, and it was from there that she was sent far north to screen test for Jedda.
"I think Sister Eileen had taken us to see one film but I did not equate this particular encounter with the Chauvels with making a film. That wasn't even in my comprehension."
Lights, camera, action?
This lack of understanding continued into the film's actual production. According to Kunoth-Monks, no-one bothered to explain what was really going on.
"All we knew was we were there, walking in front of the crew and doing things that Mrs Chauvel and Mr Chauvel were directing," she says.
When asked if she understood the film's more suggestive elements at the time, Kunoth-Monks is frank.
"I wasn't aware of it … it was Mr Tudawali who said to me: 'You know what they're making us do there, aye?' And I said: 'No! I don't what you're grabbing my ankle for.'
"At that age, when you're growing up, you don't want any man touching you. Because that is grandmother's law."
She laughs, reflecting that her youthful naiveté might have been more of a help than a hindrance.
"My lack of awareness, I guess, was a saving grace, really … otherwise I might have got carried away with myself and thought I was a sex-bomb or something!"
A world opened
Despite the crew's cavalier approach, Kunoth-Monks is on balance positive about the experience.
"Jedda opened a whole world to me, outside of Utopia and Alice Springs. I will never ever say: 'I regretted the whole experience,'" she says.
"It took me to Darwin, which I didn't even know existed in the 50s, and it took me to Sydney where there was this horde of humanity, and that terrified me.
"We became aware: Australia was a big country."
Jedda, with its overwhelmingly colonial outlook and brutal portrayal of Aboriginal people, certainly doesn't lack for critics.
But Kunoth-Monks reads the film as an indictment of white attitudes at the time.
"Well, we were declared savages anyway. So what's new about that? As far as I'm concerned people were still being kicked in ribs at 4 in the morning in the cattle camps. So it was nothing new.
"It was the practice of the day."
And, for Kunoth-Monks at least, the process was empowering.
"Because I was so young, I learnt that I was not subservient to people and the first fire in my guts, that I still have at this age, was probably kindled back then," she says.
"When somebody came and patted on you the head or something, like you were a little puppy dog … And I'm thinking 'I'm not a dog.'
"From there on I became fairly feisty."
Topics: film-movies, arts-and-entertainment, indigenous-culture, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, nt