Biography

Matthew Thorne (b. 1993, Adelaide, Kaurna Country) is an Australian filmmaker and artist working across moving image, and photography. His works are developed through years of living and working alongside communities and their land. Moving between fiction and nonfiction, they explore inheritance across family, history, and Country, approaching the process of image making as a rite of repair.

He began his career photographing and directing on projects including Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Ghosteen. After his father died in 2017, he moved to the remote opal mining town of Andamooka (Kuyani / Kokatha Country), where he spent three years making The sand that ate the sea (2020) with the community.

In 2023, he co-created Marungka tjalatjunu (Dipped in black) with Yankunytjatjara artist Derik Lynch, documenting Lynch’s return to his remote Country for healing. The film received the Silver Bear Jury Prize and Teddy Award at the Berlinale. In 2024, he co-created Extraction with Kuyani / Kokatha artist Donna Waters, exploring South Australia’s mining industry and its impact on her Story and Country. The work premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival and Samstag Museum of Art.

Matthew has published two photobooks, For My Father (2018) and Jingo was born in the slum (2021). His work has been exhibited at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; the National Portrait Gallery, London; Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris, National Portrait Gallery, Australia and the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 2026, he was selected for Berlinale Talents and exhibited at Hamburg’s Triennial of Photography.

He is represented by GAGPROJECTS / Greenaway Art Gallery and has two feature films currently in development, Flatlands and One road in / One road out.