Deborah Mailman

Acting

Deborah Mailman

Born 1972-07-14 · Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia

Deborah Jane Mailman, AM (born 14 July 1972) is an Aboriginal Australian television and film actress, and singer. She was the first Aboriginal actress to win the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and has gone on to win four more both in television and film. The awards are now known as the AACTA Awards.

Acting credits

2067 poster
5.5

A lowly utility worker is called to the future by a mysterious radio signal, he must leave his dying wife to embark on a journey that will force him to face his deepest fears in an attempt to change the fabric of reality and save humankind from its greatest environmental crisis yet.

2067

2020

Rabbit-Proof Fence poster
7.0

In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

2002

Scarygirl poster
6.9

As her world is shrouded in darkness, a young girl must overcome her fears and travel to a mysterious city of light, save her father from a dangerous scientist and prevent the destruction of her planet.

Scarygirl

2023

The New Boy poster
6.1

In a remote monastery in 1940s Australia, a mission for Aboriginal children is run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen. A new charge is delivered in the dead of night – a boy who appears to have special powers. When the monastery takes possession of a precious relic, a large carving of Christ on the cross, the new boy encounters Jesus for the first time and is transfixed. However, the boy’s Indigenous spiritual life does not gel with the mission’s Christianity and his mysterious power becomes a threat. Sister Eileen is faced with a choice between the traditions of her faith and the truth embodied in the boy, in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

The New Boy

2023

Blinky Bill the Movie poster
5.4

Blinky Bill is a little koala with a big imagination. An adventurer at heart, he dreams of leaving the little town of Green Patch and following in his missing father’s footsteps. When Blinky discovers a mysterious marker that hints at his Dad’s whereabouts, he embarks on a journey that takes him beyond the boundary of Green Patch and into the wild and dangerous Outback.

Blinky Bill the Movie

2015

The Monkey's Mask poster
4.4

A lesbian private detective dives head first into murder, manipulation and the consuming power of sex.

The Monkey's Mask

2001

Kangaroo poster
6.4

Ex TV personality, Chris Masterman, becomes stranded in an Outback town outside Alice Springs. There, he teams up with 12-year-old Indigenous girl Charlie. The pair form an unlikely friendship and work together to rescue and rehabilitate orphaned joeys in the remote but stunning Outback community—an endeavour that proves to be life-changing for them both.

Kangaroo

2025

Oddball poster
6.9

An eccentric chicken farmer, with the help of his granddaughter, trains his mischievous dog Oddball to protect a penguin sanctuary from fox attacks in an attempt to reunite his family and save their seaside town.

Oddball

2015

H Is for Happiness poster
6.5

A twelve-year-old girl with boundless optimism and a unique view of the world is inspired by the strange new boy at school, and sets out to mend her broken family – whatever it takes.

H Is for Happiness

2021

Runt poster
6.2

In the Australian town of Upson Downs, ten-year-old Annie and Runt, her stray dog, attempt to win the Agility Course Championship at the Krumpets Dog Show in London in order to save their family's farm from drought and misery.

Runt

2024

Paper Planes poster
6.0

Dylan discovers he has a talent for making paper planes. He has a chance to compete in a world championship, but he'll have to face bullies and self-doubt to do so.

Paper Planes

2014

The Sapphires poster
6.8

It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship, and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.

The Sapphires

2012

Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back poster
6.3

When the promise of living in a perfect digital world traps the citizens of Sanctuary City online, Combat Wombat and Sweetie must return to save the day and kick some wom-butt!

Combat Wombat: Back 2 Back

2024

Jack Irish: Dead Point poster
6.6

Jack Irish is thrown into a world of club owners, drug dealers and killers when he is hired by a judge to find a mysterious red book.

Jack Irish: Dead Point

2014

Repeats poster
NR

Repeats is a slide show film set to a soundtrack of answering-machine messages, accompanied by sequenced photographs that repeat and re-stage images from film history. Eleven narratives make up the work, each featuring the person who left the corresponding voice message. The work takes many of its cues from Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962), the landmark experimental film composed almost entirely of still images — and one of several films ripped off here. Made in 2000, Repeats is itself a sequel — or repeat — of Daniel Mudie Cunningham’s earlier work The Ballad of Technological Dependency (1998), which was heavily indebted to the photography of Nan Goldin and William Yang, who appears in Repeats.

Repeats

Combat Wombat poster
6.6

Maggie Diggins, a wombat turned Wonder Woman, unintentionally becomes the city's superhero after she begrudgingly saves a rookie superhero sugar glider from certain doom.

Combat Wombat

2020

A Few Less Men poster
5.4

Travel plans for three men go horribly wrong with a race against time to return Luke home.

A Few Less Men

2017

Mental poster
5.6

A charismatic, crazy hothead transforms a family's life when she becomes the nanny of five girls.

Mental

2012

Three Summers poster
5.3

Set over three summers at The Westival, a fictional West Australian rural folk festival redoubtable local radio personality ‘Queenie' describes as "Australia in a tent". Two young musicians fall in love against a wider collection of tales dealing with a microcosm of contemporary discussion points, including Indigenous, immigration and refugee issues.

Three Summers

2017

The Book of Revelation poster
5.2

An erotic mystery about power and sex, the entanglement of victim and perpetrator, and a man's struggle to regain his lost self.

The Book of Revelation

2006

Wolfram poster
4.3

1930s Australia, the colonial frontier: two swaggering outlaws roll into a mining town and unleash a wave of cruelty, leading three kids to break free from their white masters and set off across the 'sweet country' of central Australia in search of a safe home.

Wolfram

2026

Bran Nue Dae poster
5.3

In the Summer of 1965 a young man is filled with the life of the idyllic old pearling port Broome - fishing, hanging out with his mates and his girl. However his mother returns him to the religious mission for further schooling. After being punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away from the mission on a journey that ultimately leads him back home.

Bran Nue Dae

2009

A Grief Encounter poster
7.0

A taxidermist's unexpected attraction to a customer takes a twisted turn, forcing her to confront buried emotions about love and death in this darkly comedic Australian tale.

A Grief Encounter

2026

Mabo poster
7.1

The remarkable life story of Eddie 'Koiki' Mabo; a Torres Strait Islander who left school at the age of 15, yet spearheaded the High Court challenge that overthrew the fiction of terra nullius.

Mabo

2012

Behind the camera