A good two minutes after the credits had finished, the lights had come on and staff were cleaning, there were still a dozen stunned people sitting in the cinema.

And in the foyer, it was clear an emotionally confronting film about violence against women and Aboriginal people had left viewers shaken.

Kent said the response, which included "lots of tears, lots of hugs and people disclosing things that were meaningful to them" at the party afterwards, was exactly what she hoped for, given the tough content.

"Violence towards women, violence in general, is a horrifying concept," she said. "If you're going to go into this kind of story and tell it truthfully, you have to go there.

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"I really want to shake people up and wake them up to what we did and to what happened in our country. You can't go in there and sweeten it in any way."

Kent said The Nightingale, which opens in cinemas early next year, was about the impact of violence.

"The same mind that creates violence towards women is the same mind that creates violence towards Aboriginal people," she said. "And it has the same consequences."

An Indigenous dancer before acting, Ganambarr stars alongside Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (the Hunger Games movies).