Stateless, a multi premium cast including Yvonne Strahovski, Jai Courtney, Asher Keddie, Fayssal Bazzi, Dominic West and Cate Blanchett, has been commissioned for a six-part limited-series.
The Rachel House, the Kate Box, Clarence Ryan, Claude Jabbor and Rose Riley, and Hellana Sawires are among the other cast members.
The ABC and Screen Australia have entered forces with the adelant Adelaide Studios in June with Matchbox Pictures and Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton’s Dirty Films. Stateless is a dramatic and urgent about four individuals who are in a scheme of immigration that deeply impacts their life. Each protagonist deals from a distinctive angle with the contradictions between security and border control, providing an important and timely overview of the problems nations face worldwide.
Stateless is supported by the South Australian Film Corporation and has received significant manufacturing financing from the ABC and Screen Australia. NBC-Universal will distribute this product globally.
“Whilst this story centres on Australia, the dilemmas that it explores through four absorbing characters will resonate globally: the desire for personal freedom, the need for social stability, an escalating lack of faith in the political process and the deeply unsettling impact this has on individual lives.”
– Cate Blanchett; co-creator, executive producer and actor.
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.
Image: Screen Australia/ABC
