From that opening moment it’s unclear whether Sybylla’s “brilliant career” is wishful thinking or an ambition destined to be realised by the closing credits. Part of the strength and nuance of Armstrong’s film (and the book on which it was based) is that the end result is both – and neither.

Sybylla’s aspirations are realised in the sense that her independence is protected, her integrity maintained and her creative voice given an outlet. But despite those virtues – or perhaps because of them – the people around her, constituents of an atavistic male-dominated hierarchy, remain unconvinced of her success and deeply sceptical of her intentions.

“Useless, plain and godless” is how Sybylla’s mother describes her early in the film, when Armstrong is still doing the heavy lifting to establish her protagonist as a maligned free spirit rubbing up against the established order of things. In the next scene Sybylla talks to her sister, below the stars, and asks her if she’s dreamed of a better life – of adventure, books and culture, things beyond a farm-girl existence that oscillates between two modes: work and sleep.

A young woman dreaming of something greater than provincial life is a familiar narrative trajectory, but My Brilliant Career is the seminal work; the grandmother of feminist narratives, built around a character whose determination to live independent of societal expectations took place in a time well before the struggle for women’s rights became a movement.

Despite a touching romantic subplot featuring a dashing Sam Neill as Harry Beecham – one of the rare people who don’t talk down to, patronise or discourage Sybylla – the film doesn’t replace the lonely dignity of its protagonist with rosiness and romance. She ends the film as she began it, writing pensive thoughts into her diary, having refused Beecham’s hand in marriage. The dignity of the film and its subject remains heartbreakingly intact.

There’s no wonder My Brilliant Career is cited as a milestone in Australian feminist cinema. It is a powerful rumination on atavistic Australia, sexism and classism, and a sensitive portrait of a woman destined to think outside the box. Sybylla’s artistic aspirations keep the film relevant and broadly accessible. Pressure from people around her comes in many forms, even in something as innocuous as playing piano. She is instructed “play the nice ones”.

My Brilliant Career isn’t “a nice one”.

Like its protagonist, it is staunchly unconventional. The film itself is a kind of free spirit, and one that has made an indelible print on Australian cinema.