Larissa Behrendt

Larissa Yasmin Behrendt (born 1969) is an Australian legal academic, writer, filmmaker and Indigenous rights advocate. She was a professor of law (2001–2018) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), now distinguished professor there.

At UTS she was director of research and academic programs (2001–2011) at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research and holds the inaugural position of Chair in Indigenous Research. In 2025 she was appointed the chair of the Writing Australia Council.

Early life and education Larissa Yasmin Behrendt who grew up in an orphanage and became a street kid. As an adult, he worked as an air traffic controller before becoming an Aboriginal Studies academic. He established the Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1988, around the time when Behrendt commenced studying there. Her mother, who was non-Indigenous, worked in naval intelligence. Behrendt describes her upbringing as "very much working-class", and both of her parents were against religion. They moved to Sutherland Shire when she was in primary school.

She also earned a Graduate Diploma in Screenwriting (2012) and Graduate Diploma in Documentary (2013) at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS), and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (2013). The same year, she did a study for the Slavey people comparing native title developments in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Behrendt returned to Australia to become a postdoctoral researcher at the Australian National University, moving to University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in 2000.

She was a professor of law (2001–2018) and director of research and academic programs (2001–2011) at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS. She was appointed inaugural chair of Indigenous Research and Director of Research and Academic Programs in 2011. She worked inside the NSW prison system between 2003 and 2012 in her role as Alternative Chair of the Serious Offenders Review Council. She has also held judicial positions on the Administrative Decisions Tribunal (Equal Opportunity Division) and as a Land Commissioner on the Land and Environment Court.

Current academic positions Behrendt is a distinguished professor (since 2018) at UTS, and is the Laureate Fellow at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning. She is the inaugural chair of Indigenous Research and Director of Research and Academic Programs (since 2011). She has served on the board of Tranby Aboriginal College in Glebe, Sydney and has been ambassador for the Gawura Campus (an Indigenous primary school) of St Andrew's Cathedral School since at least 2012. She was a founder of the Sydney Story Factory in 2012, which established a literacy program in Redfern. In releasing the report on 14 September 2012, Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Tertiary Education, accepted all of its recommendations.

From 2009 to 2012, she co-chaired the City of Sydney's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Panel.

In the arts Behrendt has played an active role in creating and supporting arts organisations and initiatives and is a consistent advocate of increased funding for the arts. She was the inaugural chair of National Indigenous Television (NITV), the first broadcast television network in Australia dedicated to Indigenous programming, from 2006 to 2009. to 2014. since 2015, the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, chairing their Indigenous Advisory Panel (2007–2012). and Achieving Social Justice (2003). In 2005 she co-authored the book Treaty.

Behrendt has also written three works of fiction, including a novel, Home, which won the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the David Unaipon Award in 2002 as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel in the south-east Asian/South Pacific region in 2005. Her second novel, Legacy, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award Prize for Indigenous Writing (2010).

On 1 July 2025 Writing Australia is part of Creative Australia, and is responsible for supporting and promoting the Australian literature.

Film

Behrendt has written, directed, and/or produced a number of documentary films since 2013, including Innocence Betrayed (2013, writer) In My Blood It Runs (2019, producer) and Maralinga Tjarutja (2020, writer), the latter about the British nuclear tests at Maralinga in South Australia. She was Indigenous consultant for the TV documentary miniseries Australia: The Story of Us in 2015, Who do you think you are? (2018–2019) and other projects.

In 2016 Behrendt (as director) and Michaela Perske (writer and producer) were awarded the Indigenous Feature Documentary Initiative funding by the Adelaide Film Festival in conjunction with Screen Australia and KOJO to work on their feature documentary project, After the Apology, and on 9 October 2017, AFF held the world première of the resulting film. The film looks at the increase in Indigenous child removal in the years following Kevin Rudd's Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples. It won Best Direction of a Documentary Feature Film from the Australian Directors Guild in 2018, and was nominated in three categories in the 2018 AACTA Awards, including Best Direction in Nonfiction Television.

Behrendt directed Maralinga Tjarutja, a May 2020 television documentary made by Blackfella Films for ABC Television, which tells the story of the people of Maralinga, South Australia, since the 1950s British nuclear tests at Maralinga. It was deliberately broadcast around the same time that the drama series Operation Buffalo was on, to give voice to the Indigenous people of the area and show how it disrupted their lives. Screenhub gave it 4.5 stars, calling it an "excellent documentary". The film shows the resilience of the Maralinga Tjarutja people, and how they have continued to fight for their rights to look after the contaminated land. The film won the 2020 AACTA Award for Best Direction in Nonfiction Television.

In 2020 Behrendt worked as a writer for Season 2 of Total Control (TV series),

Behrendt directed a feature documentary One Mind, One Heart, produced by Michaela Perske, which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2024. The film follows the story of the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions created by Yolgnu people at the Yirrkala mission, two of which were presented to the Australian Parliament in 1963. These petitions, the first documentary recognition of Indigenous people in Australian law, were landmarks in the campaign to preserve culture and maintain Aboriginal land rights. The film was also screened on NITV, SBS Television, and SBS On Demand (where it is still available as of December 2025 ) on 19 January 2025, and at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival in February 2025,

Radio Behrendt presents radio programme Speaking Out, covering "politics, arts and culture from a range of Indigenous perspectives". It broadcasts on ABC Radio National on Fridays at 12pm (noon) and on ABC Local Radio on Sundays at 9pm.

Recognition Behrendt is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. 2002: Co-winner, inaugural Neville Bonner National Teaching Award 2005: Winner, Commonwealth Writers' Prize – Best first novel (Asia/Pacific) 2009: Winner, Prize for Indigenous Writing, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, for Legacy. 2011: NSW Australian of the Year 2012: AFTRS AW Myer Indigenous Award 2021: Winner, Human Rights Medal

Personal life Behrendt married US artist Kris Faller in 1997 while at Harvard. They separated amicably in 2001 and were later divorced.

In 2009, Behrendt began a relationship with Michael Lavarch, former Attorney-General of Australia; they married in 2011.