A few years after beginning her traineeship at CAAMA, aged 21, Perkins became executive producer of the Indigenous unit at
SBS Television, the only person in the unit. and it was part of the 1993 series
Blood Brothers, which profiled four prominent Aboriginal men. Perkins said that she travelled with her father to many of the places that the Freedom Ride visited, and it was also a good opportunity to interviewer her father about his early life and get an insight into him and events that she would not otherwise have had access to. She also gained an "understanding of the importance of filmmaking, in terms of capturing Australian cultural history".
Radiance (1998) was her first feature fiction film as a director. She said later that it took a long time to cast the main characters, who included
Trisha Morton-Thomas,
Rachael Maza, and
Deb Mailman, then a newcomer from
Brisbane, and that they rehearsed for six weeks.) and directed the
telemovie One Night the Moon, featuring musicians
Paul Kelly,
Kev Carmody, and Maireed Hannah. Her courtroom drama /
biopic telemovie about land rights campaigner
Eddie Koiki Mabo,
Mabo, featuring
Jimi Bani and
Deborah Mailman, was broadcast in 2012. Luke Buckmaster of
The Guardian gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, praising its "superb cast" and saying "the series concludes at the peak of its power". Perkins executive produced the first series of
First Contact (2014), a
reality television show which challenged the non-Indigenous participants of Indigenous Australians. Also in 2014, she finished making the documentary film
Black Panther Woman for SBS. The film was nominated for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary at the
Sydney Film Festival. She directed the feature fiction film
Jasper Jones, released in 2017. Perkins wrote, directed, presented, and produced the three-part documentary series
The Australian Wars which aired on SBS and
NITV in September 2022. This series examines the
Australian frontier wars fought across the country when British settlers moved in. Perkins has said that of all the filmmaking jobs, she likes
editing the best, as it is the most creative part. She also said that she feels a great sense of responsibility "to make films or to use media as a vehicle to tell my people's story and to create change". Other productions have included the television film
Mabo, the TV series
Redfern Now, and many more since. In 2009, Blackfella Films was renting space from
Bangarra Dance Theatre in offices overlooking
Sydney Harbour. In 2022, Perkins left Blackfella Films. ==Other activities==