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Samson and Delilah is an indigenous-Australian story told without words. Winner of the Camera d’Or first film prize at Festival de Cannes 2009, it has a tendency to leave some viewers speechless while stirring the reverse reaction in others. When the film, produced by Kath Shelper, screened to an outdoor audience of 2,500 mostly indigenous locals in Alice Springs earlier this year, there was an electric mixture of laughter, tears and hope crackling in the night air as the crowd related to one of their stories told in their way. Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton says his film is essentially a snapshot of what remote indigenous Australia looks like right now. It’s a story of petrol sniffing, boredom, neglect, despair, judgement, displacement, injustice, love and hope. It’s a plain view of our country that not many of us get to see. But it’s through a lens that can zone in on any teenager of any background in any town. The issues it raises are often hard to talk about, but Samson and Delilah’s stories are getting people talking the world over. And talking, in itself, is a positive way forward. Aussie film producer Kath Shelper confides she’s probably in the market for a new dream. The laidback, naturally funny Sydneysider has just blown her long-held one out of the water with Samson and Delilah. It’s her first feature film and also a first for Warwick Thornton, the film’s writer, director and cameraman.

Together, the firm friends have made many award-winning Australian shorts, including Green Bush in 2005, a simple tale Warwick wrote about an indigenous radio DJ who struggles to keep his community functioning. The drama premiered at Sundance Film Festival and won Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival Panorama and at Australia’s Inside Film awards. Kath earned Best Rising Talent at the IF awards the same year.

“My dream was always to make a feature film that did well in Australia, that people wanted to see here and were proud that it was Australian,” Kath tells me as she counts down the hours (two … one) until she boards a plane from Sydney to France to hit the red carpet at Festival de Cannes 2009 with Warwick, Rowan McNamara (Samson), Marissa Gibson (Delilah), and friends and family.

Samson and Delilah is part of the official selection to screen in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, with 19 other new films from across the world. Of course, as we chat we are both unaware that in just seven days’ time the film will scoop the festival’s Camera d’Or First Film prize and be described by the judging panel as “… the best love film we’ve seen for many a year”. Even before this prestigious industry blessing, worldwide the film has been racking up five-star reviews quicker than the team can count them. But French Champagne aside, Kath says her first feature would have been her greatest career coup, even if it had skidded into cinemas with all the grace of a giraffe in roller blades.

“I think, even if my first feature was a dog and no one was interested in it, it would still have to be my greatest achievement,” Kath reveals. “It’s a pretty significant time for any filmmaker to complete their feature film and have people pay money to see it and be invited to an amazing film festival and have all your family and friends be really proud of you – that’s a pretty beautiful thing.”

Kath advises aspiring filmmakers to find likeminded people to work with and to only tell stories they truly believe in, explaining, “For me, it’s all about the people and the story. I like Warwick as a person and I like hanging out with him.  We have a real simpatico with the types of things we’re interested in and care about and we have a common sense of humour.”

Kath is also on the same creative page as Warwick’s wife, Beth Cole; the pair are currently working on a documentary about the making of Samson and Delilah through the eyes of the two young shining stars, Rowan and Marissa, who both live in Alice Springs and are new to the screen.

To arrive at her first feature, Kath had to overcome what she believes was her greatest career challenge: learning patience. “At the time, when you’re trying to be a filmmaker, it feels like everything is happening really slowly. I had aspirations to make my own feature by the time I was 30, but in retrospect I can see I’m a much better practitioner now because there’s almost an outside force that’s slowing you down and making you learn your craft, and practise your craft, and not get too far head of yourself. It’s a journey of learning about life but also learning about all the different steps of filmmaking and what works and what doesn’t.”

Kath has a kids’ circus and the local drive-in movies to thank for her career in film. Growing up in country Albury, New South Wales, she didn’t have a particularly creative upbringing. “We were normal bored kids in the country playing dress-ups and putting on little shows and setting up lemonade stands and trying to sell lemons we’d stolen off the trees.” It wasn’t until a documentary maker came to town one day to film her brothers and sisters performing in The Flying Fruit Fly Circus that it dawned on her, “… Oh, people make films”. And after seeing Storm Boy at a local drive-in and being “totally blown away by it,” she began to think she, too, could get behind the scenes.

Over the past 20 years, Kath has studied PR and film electives at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and has worked on countless projects for the screen. Along the way she’s proven she really can make films, and beautiful ones at that. With plenty yet to achieve, maybe even “something silly and fun” like an Aussie romantic comedy, it’s Kath’s production company website, ScarlettPictures.com.au, that says it all for the moment: “Too darn busy for websites”.

Text by Frances Frangenheim