Natasha Wanganeen

Wanganeen was born in Point Pearce, South Australia, moving to Port Adelaide when she was five years old.[1] She is a Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, Kaurna and Noongar woman.[2]

Wanganeen starred in Rabbit Proof Fence (released 2002), playing dormitory boss[2] at the age of fifteen,[3] and the made-for-TV film Jessica directed by Peter Andrikidis and released in 2004.

In 2017 she starred as a zombie-killer[2] in the dystopian thriller Cargo.[3][2] Also in 2017, she played the role of Gilyagan in Kate Grenville's play The Secret River presented during the Adelaide Festival in March, and later played a different role in the two-part TV series of the same name.[4]

She played Mary, mother of a talented gymnast, in feature film A Second Chance: Rivals!, released in 2019,[5][6] and in the same year played a ghoul in the horror film Dark Place.[2]

As of June 2020, Wanganeen is working on a new sci-fi series, inspired by Afrofuturism, called Bunker: The Last Fleet. She is co-writing, producing and starring in the yet-to-be-filmed series, which it is hoped will be shown on SBS TV, NITV or the ABC. She plays Tjarra, an Aboriginal warrior in Australia 37 years in the future. She is also writing a script for her own independent film, Battle Of The Ancestors, set 60,000 years ago against a backdrop of Aboriginal mythology, including Dreamtime stories and characters she knows from here childhood years. She is being supported by Screen Australia and the South Australian Film Corporation in this endeavour, and is in talks with local production companies who are interested in seeing it made.[2]

Wanganeen is on the jury for the Feature Fiction and Documentary awards at the 2020 Adelaide Film Festival.[7][8]

Recent TV roles include playing the Mary Ann Bugg, a late 19th-century bushranger, in Drunk History Australia (Network 10) and a chef in Aftertaste (Closer Productions/ABC Comedy). She plays a government official in 2067, a sci-fi thriller feature film directed by Seth Larney.[8][9]

• 2004 – AFI Young Actor's Award, for Jessica[1][10]

In 2018, Wanganeen advocated for greater cultural diversity in Australian screen culture, saying "There are not enough black faces on our screens and talking about it is a constructive conversation that we need to have".[11] She expressed her pleasure at the portrayal of Aboriginal people in Cargo (2017) as "living free and strong on the land".[12]

Wanganeen was one of the organisers of the Black Lives Matter protest in Adelaide on 6 June 2020, which focussed on racism and injustices against Indigenous Australians, in particular high rates of incarceration and Aboriginal deaths in custody.[13][14]

She lives in Port Adelaide and is related to the Australian rules footballer, Gavin Wanganeen.[4]