Next week, our community gathers for a special Reconciliation Week screening at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre. The short film, The Rock, brings a powerful intergenerational story by Koori dancer and storyteller Luke McLeod Ebsworth to life, blending deep historical truths with sharp local humor.
On the eve of the premiere of The Rock, a short film by Luke McLeod Ebsworth made possible by the Shoalhaven First Nations Film Festival, we asked a few of the key people involved in the project to share some behind-the-scenes stories, starting with the writer himself, as well as his collaborator Julie Cunningham and SFNFF president, Julienne McKay. Next week as part of Reconciliation Week, The Rock is being screened at the Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre.
About The Rock
The Rock is an intergenerational story, based on historical events. It is a story told to Luke by his grandfather, Bobby McLeod, who was a musician, activist and poet. The plot is a poignant, witty narrative of a First Nations encounter with white-man’s law, which crosses historical and contemporary settings.
It is based on an original story retold by Luke McLeod-Ebsworth, a young Koori dancer and storyteller, with the script developed in collaboration with media-creative, Julie Cunningham.
Luke McLeod Ebsworth
We spoke to the script writer and filmmaker Luke McLeod Ebsworth before the final weekend of shooting for The Rock at the end of April, to ask what the experience has been like for him, making his first film. “We’re gonna go for one more hit tomorrow with Jamie [Lepre] and a couple of the guys, we’ve got one or two more scenes to shoot. It’s all pretty much rounding up and getting into a pretty funky little edit stage which I’ve already had the pleasure of doing but it’s pretty cool.”
On choosing this story to work up, Luke says, “I spoke of about four stories on the day when we had Sal in the room with all of the Shoalhaven First Nations Film Festival crew [at a filmmaking workshop in June 2025]. And this one reached out to me to do because, for one, it’s shootable and that would have been a reality … to make something executable. It’s really static, whereas some of the other stories I’ve talked about in the room, there was a moving car, or there’s multiple components and [too difficult] budget wise, or resource wise.
“And it’s a really solid story, it’s got all the elements.”
Luke says the shoot locations were also a big part of the story.
“The location was always going to be somewhere down here. That’s sticking to the mission statement of the whole film and when we landed on a few spots, we wanted to catch certain elements of the environment like a sunrise, and showcase the different shades of our coastal area. Trying to get the atmosphere and on camera, that was a lot of fun.
“We shot some at Summercloud Beach, out by Wreck Bay, out at the community, and we also shot at Bristol Point. We used the Milton courthouse just out to the front there. And we used Sussex Inlet, the old school church, so there’s a few heritage spots there along the way on both sides, Indigenous and non-indigenous.”
Which references the colonial elements of the story, as Luke says, “It was always going to be colonial heavy, and essentially to remind us of the times and as modern as well as historical values being portrayed.”
Alongside the serious nature of the story, humour also plays a big part.
“I think in any sense, humor is literally what’s getting me out of bed! I think in a story writing sense, humor should be something that is a lighthearted, playful way of being.
“A lot of what I’ve picked up from these old stories, they’ve all got their own little funny, quirky side, you won’t understand it unless it’s happening to you as well.
“For me, it was a funny story because it makes you think. You could come to the realisation there’s a darker side. It’s like, what is funny about that? that’s not a laughing matter. And you know, it’s true for you know, I imagine if that was just the only avenue we had and we would like, you know consuming the metaphors and understandings about stories, always serious, it would just take the joy out of the learning process.
“We’ve got to sometimes just sit back and laugh, not in a bad way … but in a mature sense where it’s like, oh, that’s crazy, a lighthearted sense of it.”
Luke says it’s been constant challenges and surprises, making his first film.
“I think the surprise and the challenge I’ve had is that I’ve never worked in this position, in this medium before, so being given the power and then literally being in the deep end. I’ve had previous experience but not on this side of filmmaking. So the surprises have pretty much come every minute. Every time we shoot action or make a cut, I’m literally digesting what is happening.
“I’m an active learner so I’m constantly surprising myself about how things are selected and even camera angles to shoot, what kind of focus they have to have, the lighting, directing people on the set. All of it is very much a welcome challenge and I’m very grateful to be able to be a part of such a process.
“Everyone’s a professional in their own sense and I don’t have any like formal accreditation when it comes to what some of the people brought on set and within the medium. It’s been a real big eye-opener for me and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”
Luke says he would definitely do this whole thing again.
“Hopefully this will encourage more filmmakers or creative writers to step in the arena and put their stuff from paper to screen. It is a very specific medium, and it is a very illustrious medium, considering how many people can witness it or digest what it is, because film is huge.”
Julie Cunningham, co-writer and collaborator
“Being asked by Luke to work with him on the script for The Rock felt like a privilege, being as it was, a story originating from his legendary Pop, the musician, activist and poet, Bobby Mc Leod.
“Luke’s request came out of the blue, as I’d only met him while documenting the first SFNFF story writing for the screen workshops early last year. I’d written scripts and been funded to do so earlier in my life, and it was an exciting prospect to work with Luke. My job was to help structure and layout the script. We met a couple of hours a week through October last year.
“Luke has a philosophical bent, and deep knowledge of First Nation ways of honouring the land and sea, which are embedded in the film. I shared Luke’s love of symbolism and appreciated the, at times, surprising evolution of the story. Luke’s open sensibility meant, when a couple of story ideas came to me that he liked, they were incorporated.
“ I love that our collaboration worked across our wide differences in ages and cultural inheritance, and that we are now seeing it turn into a film!”
Julienne McKay, The Story of the Making of The Rock
I first heard the story of The Rock 12 months ago at a storytelling and filmmaking workshop organized by SFNFF. The workshops were led by Sal Balharrie, whose inspirational film, Like My Brother, had just been screened by SFNFF.
When Sal heard that one of the goals of SFNFF was to inspire, encourage and support young members of the Shoalhaven’s First Nations Communities to continue the tradition of storytelling, and to preserve and share their stories by recording them on film, she offered to lead workshops.
Saying ‘yes, please’ has turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made since SFNFF was launched in 2024. Sal’s ability to draw out stories from participants was masterful…and by the end of the first day, participants had developed a list of 10 stories that could be made into an anthology from the Yuin Nation, with the working title Jerra.
To test this idea, we selected one of the stories and in September last year The Unexpected Visitor, a film by first time writer/director, Tolbin Parsons, had its world premiere at Huskisson Pictures!
At the workshops, Luke McLeod Ebsworth retold many stories heard from his Pop, Bobby McLeod, poet, songwriter, singer and a man who fought for the rights of his People.
One of Bobby’s stories was The Rock. Like all the stories Luke told at the workshops, it was a funny yarn with a twist in the tale…his Pop had been caught fishing for abalone, hauled before a local Judge and threatened with jail; Bobby’s defense was that the abalone was part of his Country, just like the rock in his hand, and he could not be separated from his Country – the Judge’s response, ‘then I’ll jail both you and your rock’.
Months later, when Julie Cunningham, Mike Clear and I sat down to chat to Luke about turning one of his Pop’s stories into a short film, he spoke about his desire to keep the legacy of his Pop alive, passing messages down through the generations about the inequity and injustice experienced by his People since colonisation.
Luke reimagined the story of the rock as a multigenerational tale, a First Nations man in the 1820s charged with stealing abalone on the Country where his ancestors had lived and fished and hunted for thousands of generations. The Judge was a man sent to the colony of New South Wales to impose British justice, with no sense of the rights of the People whose land the colonists were illegally occupying. The role of the judge was in part conceived around Judge Barron Field, remembered now as the infamous judge who embedded the concept of ‘terra nullius’ into Australian law as a basis for seizing Aboriginal lands.
Terra nullius lasted for almost 200 years, a time period reflected in the sentencing shown in The Rock.
Luke asked Julie Cunningham to work with him in turning the story into a film script, and a very productive collaboration began, blending Julie’s script writing skills and knowledge of filmmaking with Luke’s natural ability as a thoughtful and provocative storyteller.
With the script completed, The Rock needed a cast and a film crew.
Laura Sansoneti’s network – and powers of persuasion – proved invaluable as she uncovered a wealth of hidden talent in our local community.
Local filmmaker, Jamie Lepre, who had so skillfully co-directed The Unexpected Visitor with Tolbin, was asked to co-direct The Rock with Luke, and, as he did with Tolbin, to mentor Luke in the development of his capability as a filmmaker.
A bonus for SFNFF in working with Jamie is his highly professional and extraordinarily patient crew: Matt Loft, camera operator and Adam Jordan, sound recordist.
Filming took place at the end of March, with the outdoor scenes shot in Booderee National Park and the courthouse scenes in the ‘repurposed’ old church at Sussex Inlet – all on the lands of the Yuin Nation.
For someone with barely a creative bone in her body, watching the filming was a mystifying experience – so many takes of the one scene, seemingly a slight twitch of an eyebrow made the difference between “let’s do it again” and “a take”. Thank heavens Julie, very ably assisted by LeAnn Hanson (who bravely asked if there was anything she could do to help!), kept track of the sequences.
And keeping this mix of comedy and drama running smoothly was Mike Clear, SFNFF’s and The Rock’s troubleshooter, a constructive and creative contributor from the beginning.
Turning hours of raw footage into a coherent film that did justice to Luke’s story and the script he developed with Julie became the task of Evangeline Read, a talented film editor. The film you are about to see owes a great deal to Evangeline’s skill and patience and above all her to determination to capture Luke’s voice, and the echoes of his Pop’s voice, in The Rock.
Enabling talented storytellers to work alongside professionals in particular fields of film production – scriptwriting, direction, production, editing – is seen by SFNFF as a powerful way both to bring their stories to film and to build the filmmaking skills of the local First Nations Communities.
The Rock is a story of First Peoples and colonisation, a mix of comedy and drama.
It is also a story from our community. To read more about it, please go to the sfnff website.
