Film traces the 14-year fight for a job at the Port Kembla steelworks

In 1974 her short documentary BellBrook appeared at the festival. This year her second doco, Women of Steel is up for a $10,000 prize for best documentary at the Sydney Film Festival.

The South Coast filmmaker was "humbled" to be one of the 10 finalists and believed Women of Steel could be the only film at the festival entirely funded by donations from individuals and groups.

Read more: How these women cleaned up Port Kembla

"Over 500 people donated to the film, including most unions throughout Australia, particularly my union - the Australian Workers Union - which was right at the heart of the fight back in 1980," Ms Murphy said.

That fight was against BHP, who owned the Port Kembla steelworks at the time.

The documentary is set in 1980s Wollongong - a time of high unemployment - and looks at the fight of working class and migrant women to get a job at the Port Kembla steelworks.

Those women had been travelling to Sydney every day to work in factories or backyard sweatshops.

Meanwhile, the steelworks employed more than 20,000 men but refused to let any women through the gates.

This sparked an incredible 14-year campaign that started at the steelworks' gates and went all the way to the High Court of Australia.

Ms Murphy was one of those women, and she became a steelworker at the end of that 14-year fight, working as an operator in the hot strip mill among other places.

"When I tried to get a job they just said there were no jobs for women," she said.

"That was the case, we found out, with over 1200 women who put their names down for work and had been told they couldn't work.

"So the first experience was challenging that attitude and I'm so glad we did because we've changed those attitudes. I think we set a bit a of a precedent for women working in what was male-dominated industries.

"My experience in the steelworks - I loved it. I miss it, I miss the camaraderie of my fellow work mates. I learned so much about our migrant community in Wollongong."

Thanks to COVID-19 the Sydney Film Festival will be screened online this year.

"I'm a little bit disappointed that we can't have a great big premiere, and I'm really disappointed with not being able to hug people," she said.

"But the thing about the Sydney Film Festival being online is that it does mean that everybody in Australia can actually see this film - all you have to do is go online and get a ticket."

Women of Steel will be shown online from June 10 to 21. Purchase tickets at www.sff.org.au