For more than a century, Australian cinema has returned repeatedly to Ned Kelly. Now a new historical drama is preparing to tell the story from the other side — through the eyes of a woman who lived with the consequences of Kelly’s most notorious crime for the rest of her life.

Kennedy, from Lonely Hill Films, centres on Bridget Kennedy, the widow of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, one of three police officers killed by the Kelly Gang at Stringybark Creek in 1878. Rather than placing Kelly and his gang at the centre of the narrative, the film follows Bridget’s decades-long fight to preserve her husband’s memory and secure greater protection for the families of police officers killed in the line of duty.

Lauren Hamilton Neill, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Darren K. Hawkins, will play Bridget, with The Matrixveteran Anthony Brandon Wong joining the cast as journalist Liu Dihuan. Thea McLeod serves as both producer and casting director, alongside producers Hawkins and Kieren Devisser.

The story is framed around a moment of considerable significance in Australian film history. In December 1906, The Story of the Kelly Gang premiered at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Hall. Recognised as the world’s first feature-length narrative film, it helped transform the Kelly story into something larger than history: mythology.

In Kennedy, Bridget stands outside the theatre as audiences prepare to watch the man responsible for her husband’s death transformed into a cinematic folk hero. Her encounter with Liu, a Chinese-Australian journalist hoping to establish himself at The Argus, provides the framework through which her story unfolds.

The film then moves between 1906 and the preceding decades, tracing Bridget and Michael’s courtship and marriage, the events at Stringybark Creek and Bridget’s life after her husband’s death.

For Hamilton Neill, discovering Bridget’s story meant confronting how little she knew about the people who existed on the other side of Australia’s enduring fascination with Kelly.

“When Darren first approached me about playing Bridget Kennedy, like most Australians, I had no idea who she was, or who her brave husband was. For generations, the descendants of our characters have had to endure seeing a murderer glorified and given hero status. Our hope is that they can now begin healing. Sergeant Michael Kennedy was one of the bravest men to ever live; even Ned Kelly said that. Bridget’s courage had laws changed in this country, and their story has never been written. In 2028, on the 150th anniversary of Michael’s slaughter, the world will know them.”

The production positions Kennedy as the first Kelly-era feature to place a woman at the centre of the story and the first dramatic feature in the Kelly canon to be co-written by a woman. Hamilton Neill’s previous screen credits include The Gods of Wheat Street, Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms and independent features Risen, Stage 5 and The Girl in the Shadows.

Hawkins sees Bridget’s story as considerably more than an alternative perspective on a familiar Australian legend.

“Kennedy is a project that I see as both historically and culturally significant for Australia,” Hawkins says. “But its themes aren’t just confined to Antipodean shores or ideals. It’s an immigrant’s story and it speaks to the wider Irish diaspora. It’s a sweeping love story, where two people were able to carve out a new world and new love, against the harshest of times.”

At its heart, Hawkins says, is a woman who refused to accept the circumstances imposed upon her.

“Most importantly, this speaks of the fire and determination of a woman in Bridget Kennedy who did not go quietly into the night. A story that has been so long pushed aside, but she challenged a patriarchal system and found a victory, when all may have seemed lost. A woman that we all should know her name.”

Anthony Brandon Wong Challenges the Accepted Story

The addition of Wong gives Kennedy another perspective from which to examine the creation of national mythology.

His character, Liu Dihuan, is a journalist trying to make his way towards a position at The Argus. Faced with restrictions on what he can write about Kelly and his victims, Liu becomes willing to hear the story Bridget believes Australia has ignored.

Wong, whose screen career spans more than three decades, is best known internationally as Ghost in The Matrix Reloadedand The Matrix Revolutions. His Australian credits include three seasons of The Family Law, as well as The Twelve, The PM’s Daughter and Home and Away. His film work includes Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, Little Fish, Flight of the Phoenix and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

“For me, I’m all about questioning long-held narratives because I believe perception doesn’t always equal reality,” Wong says. “And that’s what I love about the movie Kennedy — it asks the question, ‘Was Ned Kelly the hero so many Australians make him out to be?’”

For Wong, Liu’s role is not simply to receive Bridget’s story but to question the version of Australian history he has inherited.

“My character in the movie who bravely launches that investigation is Liu, a journalist eager to go beyond the established narrative and find out another side of the story,” he says. “After I read the script, I couldn’t resist being part of this deeply moving, important and necessary retelling of Australian history.”

Wong will also serve as drama coach on the production, drawing upon close to two decades teaching the Ivana Chubbuck Technique as well as his experience training with Chubbuck, Larry Moss and Eric Morris.

Hawkins says Wong’s ability to operate on both sides of the camera made him particularly valuable to the production.

“I’ve admired Anthony’s work for years, on screen, on stage, and in the way he develops the next generation of actors,” Hawkins says. “As Liu, he brings the truth and depth this story needs to guide audiences through a new lens on the Kelly story.”

Putting Bridget Kennedy at the Centre

Bridget Mary Tobin married Michael Kennedy in 1868. Ten years later, on Oct. 26, 1878, Kennedy was killed alongside Constables Michael Scanlan and Thomas Lonigan at Stringybark Creek in Victoria’s Wombat Ranges.

Bridget was left to raise five children and would live until 1924, watching the story of Ned Kelly migrate from newspapers and popular culture onto the screen.

The filmmakers intend Kennedy to explore not simply what happened at Stringybark Creek, but what happened to those left behind. According to the production, Bridget’s subsequent campaign for provision for families of police officers killed in the line of duty contributed to changes in Victorian law covering police families.

That largely untold aftermath was what attracted producer and casting director Thea McLeod to the project.

“What drew me to Kennedy was the opportunity to tell such an iconic part of Australian history from a perspective we haven’t really heard before,” McLeod says. “Bridget Kennedy lived through the devastating consequences of these events, yet her story has largely remained in the shadows.”

McLeod, president of the Casting Guild of Australia, has worked across Australian film and television for more than two decades. Her casting credits include Neighbours, Better Man, Schapelle and City Homicide, while she produced and cast the features Pawno and Measure for Measure.

“There are extraordinary roles in Kennedy, and as both producer and casting director I’m incredibly excited about the calibre of actors we are bringing together,” McLeod says. “Anthony Brandon Wong is a wonderful addition to the film, and there are some very exciting cast announcements still to come.”

Veteran Australian actor Tony Bonner and Matt Oxley have also joined the cast, with their roles yet to be announced. Bonner’s career stretches from Skippy and Division 4 through The Anzacs, The Man From Snowy River and The Lighthorsemen.

Rewriting a National Myth

The timing of Kennedy adds another dimension to the project. December marks 120 years since The Story of the Kelly Gang premiered in Melbourne, while October 2028 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Stringybark Creek killings.

The screenplay has been in active development since early 2024 and has gone through eight drafts. Location scouting is underway across north-east Victoria, where the events took place, and Ballarat, whose surviving 19th-century streetscapes are being considered for the period production.

Casimir Dickson ACS is attached as cinematographer, with Panavision Australia supporting the production. Screen Inc. has secured Australian and New Zealand distribution, while Sony Music Australia is also supporting the project. The production has additionally received support from independent MP Zali Steggall.

For Hawkins and Hamilton Neill, however, Kennedy ultimately returns to the collision at the Athenaeum in 1906: one woman watching as the tragedy that defined her life begins its transformation into entertainment.

Cinema helped make Ned Kelly immortal. Kennedy intends to ask what — and who — was lost in the process.