The Australian Women's Register

Moffatt released her first documentary in 1988. A Change of Face critically examined the popular understanding and construction of Australian identity in films, television drama and advertisements.

Moffatt’s first documentary focused solely on Aboriginal culture is Moodeitj Yorgas (Solid Women). Released in 1989, the film focused on strong and successful Aboriginal women. The film is constructed through the use of interviews, photographs of Aboriginal people and their land, stories about how the arrival of white man changed Aboriginal life (told in two Aboriginal languages), and Aboriginal music and dance. The interviews with Sally Morgan, Lois Olney, Helen Corbett and Helen Dorondorf are symbolic of the collective voice of Aboriginal women.

Her next documentary was Nice Coloured Girls (1989). Moffatt again juxtaposed photography with voiceovers to examine the historical relationship between Aboriginal women and white men. The documentary questioned the validity of conventional white history that depicts Aborigines as passive and powerless.

Also in 1989, she wrote and directed Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy. Night Cries was inspired by Charles Chauvel’s Jedda (1955), and continued the story of the two main characters, thirty years after Jedda. In the film, the relationship has changed from mother and child to carer and invalid.

Moffatt’s first feature film Bedevil was a set of three individual ghost stories that interlock to form one cohesive movie. The film was released in 1993 and is the second feature film to be directed by an indigenous Australian.