story time
With her whole family involved in the film industry – her father Warwick Thornton is the director, screenwriter and cinematographer behind iconic Australian films Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country; her mother Penelope McDonald is a producer, writer and director; and her brother, Dylan River is a filmmaker and photographer – it was perhaps inevitable that Rona would be drawn to the power of storytelling as a way to help share First Nations and Torres Strait Islander culture.
Raised in Alice Springs (Mparntwe), Rona moved from sundrenched Central Australia to climatically turbulent Melbourne (Naarm) to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce, Finance and Economics – and it was while at university that the idea for her social enterprise, Common Ground – a platform sharing First Nations cultures, histories and lived experiences – was seeded. “People would be constantly asking me questions about life in Central Australia and about Aboriginality. I
