Leah Purcell’s ‘The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson’ to Open Melbourne International Film Festival

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) returns August 5-22, opening with the Australian premiere of Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson. A vivid reckoning with Australia’s colonial history, the revisionist outback western speaks emphatically to the realities, both past and present, of racial injustice – told through the lens of an Indigenous woman. The film completes a multi-format trilogy based on Henry Lawson’s 1892 short story, which began with Purcell’s award-winning play and subsequent novel The Drover’s Wife.

“I am excited to bring the Dreaming storytelling structure of The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson to the big screen and as part of such a prestigious festival” said Leah Purcell. “It is an honour to be the first female Indigenous director to have an opening night film at MIFF and I am thrilled to act as an ambassador for their stellar showcase of filmmaking.”

Both director and actor, Purcell’s amazing central performance as the impassioned matriarch Molly Johnson, which heralds a new Indigenous feminist heroine, is supported by stunning performances from Rob Collins (Cleverman, The Wrong Girl) as Yadaka, the fugitive turned friend, British sergeant Sam Reid (The Riot Club) and his activist wife Jessica de Gouw (Arrow, The Secrets She Keeps).

Watch the trailer for The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson.

First Glance Titles

Ablaze (Australia)
Anonymous Club (Australia)
Araatika: Rise Up! (Australia)
Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution (Australia, Italy)
City Hall (USA)
Dear Comrades! (Russia)
El Planeta (Spain)
Geeta (Australia)
Hating Peter Tatchell (Australia)
Hear My Eyes: Two Hands x The Murlocs (Australia)
Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (Germany)
Hopper/Welles (USA)
Little Tornadoes (Australia)
Lone Wolf (Australia)
Love in Bright Landscapes (Australia)
Nitram (Australia)
Off Country (Australia)
Palazzo Di Cozzo (Australia)
Paper City (Australia)
Petit Maman (France)
Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, France, Norway, Turkey)
Radiance (Australia)
Sisters With Transistors (UK, France)
Streamline (Australia)
The Drover’s Wife The Legend Of Molly Johnson (Australia)
The Human Voice (Spain)
Uluru and the Magician (Australia)
Vacant Possession (Australia)
Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow (Australia)
We Are the Thousand (Italy)
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Japan)
Zola (USA)