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Stateless to start production in South Australia featuring all-star cast
15 May 2019
ABC & SCREEN AUSTRALIA JOIN FORCES WITH
MATCHBOX & DIRTY FILMS FOR A POWERFUL DRAMA STARRING YVONNE STRAHOVSKI, JAI COURTNEY, ASHER KEDDIE, FAYSSAL BAZZI, DOMINIC WEST AND CATE BLANCHETT
Brand new drama Stateless has been commissioned for a powerful six-part limited series starring a multi award-winning cast including Yvonne Strahovski, Jai Courtney, Asher Keddie, Fayssal Bazzi, Dominic West and Cate Blanchett. Additional cast members include Rachel House, Kate Box, Clarence Ryan, Claude Jabbour, Rose Riley and Helana Sawires.
The ABC and Screen Australia have joined forces with Matchbox Pictures and Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton’s Dirty Films, with production set to begin in South Australia in June, based at Adelaide Studios. Stateless is an urgent and compelling drama about four people caught up in an immigration system that profoundly affects their lives. Each character deals with the contradictions of protection and border control from a unique perspective, offering relevant and timely insight into issues that countries are grappling with around the world.
Stateless received major production funding from Screen Australia and the ABC and is financed with support from the South Australian Film Corporation. It will be distributed worldwide by NBCUniversal.
Co-created by Cate Blanchett, Tony Ayres and Elise McCredie, the series centres on four strangers in an immigration detention centre in the Australian desert. They are an airline hostess escaping a suburban cult, an Afghan refugee fleeing persecution, a young Australian father escaping a dead-end job and a bureaucrat caught-up in a national scandal. When their lives intersect they are pushed to the brink of sanity, yet unlikely and profound emotional connections are made amongst the group. Inspired by real events, the series intertwines gripping and devastating personal stories revealing a system struggling with the irreconcilable contradictions of border protection.