Search the Collection

Essie Coffey

Director | Murawari

Please note

Sorry, we don't have images for this creator.

Source: Some information on this page may have been sourced as part of the 2023 Wikimedia Australia Partnership Projects grant, with the purpose of improving and expanding the use of Wikidata on our website. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Read more about this project here.

Essie Coffey OAM was a community worker, activist and filmmaker. Born Essiena Goodgabah in Goodooga, New South Wales, she was a member of the Muruwari people of north-western NSW and southern Queensland. She lived in Brewarrina, also known as Dodge City, where she raised 18 children with her husband Albert ‘Doc’ Coffey and was affectionately known by the title Bush Queen of Brewarrina. She was co-founder of the Western Aboriginal Legal Service and was an inaugural member of the National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. She was the first Aboriginal woman to direct a documentary, with the award-winning My Survival as an Aboriginal in 1978, followed by My Life as I Live It, in 1993. After refusing an MBE on the grounds that she was not a member of the British Empire, she was awarded an Order of Australia medal in 1985 for services to the Aboriginal community.

Source: Wikidata , May 2022

Related works

How are these works connected?

Explore this constellation

Related articles

Related events

Credits

Born
25 Feb 1941
Died
3 Jan 1998 (aged 56)
Production Places
Australia

On other websites

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

75053

Wikidata

Q15462260

VIAF

277786581

LOC Auth

n80130347

WorldCat

lccn-n80130347

TMDB-Person

75053

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.