Darlene Johnson, a filmmaker from the Dunghutti people of the east coast of New South Wales graduated with a BA (Hons), specialising in Indigenous and post-colonial cinema from the University of Technology, Sydney.
In 2000 Johnson wrote and directed Stolen Generations, her first hour-long television documentary. The film was nominated for an International Emmy (2000) and for Best Documentary at the 2000 AFI awards. It screened at the 2000 Margaret Mead Film Festival and was a finalist in the Hollywood Black Film Festival. Stolen Generations won the journalist award for Best Documentary at Film De Femmes International Women's Film Festival in France and the Golden Gate Award in the History section of the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival.
Darlene Johnson has directed a documentary about the making of Phillip Noyce's feature, Rabbit Proof Fence and in 2017 wrote her first feature film, Obelia.
In March 2019, she was awarded the inaugural Australian International Screen Forum scholarship; the scholarship included a three-month attachment on a film shooting in New York later in 2019.