Teen director Emerie Boone initially wanted to be an actress and played Jade in two seasons of The PM's Daughter in her first TV role.
But the 18-year-old found that while on set, she was using her breaks to learn how things worked behind the scenes.
"I do love being in front of the camera," Boone told ABC News.
"I absolutely adore the scripts and the acting and bringing the characters to life.
"I loved being behind the screen as well and seeing all the things that play out behind the camera; when all these things that you see in person can be translated to film, how things might feel silly when you're acting it out, but how beautifully it comes together when it's on TV."
Boone was the first girl outside of the United States selected to participate in Black Girls Film Camp in Los Angeles, a stone's throw away from Hollywood.
At the 2024 camp:
- 200 girls were invited to pitch films. Ten were selected to make those films, including Boone.
- The 10 girls were given a $US500 ($740) allowance to make their own films.
- They were given cameras and other equipment they can also use to make future films.
- A team consisting of coaches, production managers and cinematographers helped bring the films to life.
- The girls participated in biweekly sessions in which Black women from the film industry shared their knowledge.
Boone behind-the-scenes at the Black Girl Film Camp. (Supplied: Terryn Pinder)
At Boone's camp, the participants got to hear from editor Chassidy Jade (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Creed III), Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E Carter (Wakanda Forever, Black Panther, Malcolm X, Do the Right Thing), and actor/filmmakers Meagan Good (Tyler Perry's Divorce in the Black, Think Like a Man), and Tasha Smith (Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Empire).
Boone soaked up all this knowledge.
"Tasha Smith gave us a really good session about directing and how to evoke emotion out of our actors and how we can actually talk to an actor based off her own acting experiences," Boone said.
'You aren't an anomaly'
Boone made a film called Sole Sista, which was judged the best overall film from the 2024 cohort.
Other accolades included the alumni award, where girls from previous years voted on their favourite film.
Written and directed by Boone, Sole Sista uses hair to explore isolation and the fish-out-of-water experience.
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It's loosely based on her own experiences growing up in Australia as an African American girl born in New York, who relocated to Sydney at the age of one with her family in 2007.
Boone says she found community in the hair salon owned by her mother.
"It's a curly hair salon, which caters to women of curly hair because they're so used to being turned down at other hair salons, which only cater to straight hair or wavy loose curls and not actual dense, curly hair," Boone said.
"And I feel as though that really influenced my film and the sense of community because I was brought up around such an inviting and loving community who helped share this thing that connects them all.
"When you find that community of other people with curly hair like yours, you find that you aren't an anomaly. You aren't someone who's out of the ordinary."
While Boone drew inspiration from her own life, she says Sole Sista isn't just rooted in her own experience.
"Being a Black girl from Australia, I thought that I was the only one going through the things that I was going through," she said.
"And I was surprised when I talked to Black girls from the US that they were going through the same thing because I was thinking that there is a lot more community out in the US.
"So, I was surprised when I heard that other Black girls felt like they were isolated."
Why the need for a Black Girl Film Camp?
Just three per cent of Hollywood films are written and directed by Black women, and only three per cent centre Black girls as the subject.
Just three per cent of Hollywood films are written and directed by Black women. (Supplied: Terryn Pinder)
Boone "adored" the camp.
"It felt really freeing to be in a space where I'm not only embraced but included and seen," she said.
Boone wants her film, and others she makes, to connect to people around the world.
"I don't want it to be something that is restricted by continent," she said.
"I want this message to be something that can be translated into any culture, any community, that feeling of being isolated, that it's not a 'you' problem.
"This is something that is universal, regardless of your ethnicity, your racial background, your nationality, this is something we all go through, whether it's hair, whether it's race, whether it's anything under the sun, this is something that's universal and it's shared."
Sole Sista will be screened virtually in October at the Micheaux Film Festival, named after pioneering African American author and filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. It's also been selected for the Mill Valley Film Festival in California.