After shooting a miniseries about the last Australian man executed in Singapore for drug smuggling, director Khoa Do is tackling the controversial story of another Australian convicted criminal: Schapelle Corby.
Do will direct a Nine Network telemovie about Corby, who is serving a 15-year prison term for attempting to smuggle 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Bali in a body-board bag in 2004.
Filming is due to start in Queensland later this year, produced by Stephen Corvini for FremantleMedia.
Corby’s supporters believe in her innocence despite her conviction.
Do wrote and directed the SBS miniseries Better Man, the saga of young Australian Van Nguyen who was executed in Singapore in 2005, which starred David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Claudia Karvan and Remy Hii.
His credits include Mother Fish, a drama about four refugees who fled Vietnam in 1980; Falling for Sahara, a love story about three African guys who fall for the same girl; and Footy Legends, the saga of a young Vietnamese Australian man in Western Sydney who is obsessed with rugby league.
Among the key characters in the Corby telemovie will be Schapelle’s father Mick, her mother Rosleigh Rose, older sister Mercedes and her Balinese husband Wayan, her half- brother James Kisina and Ron Bakir, the Gold Coast entrepreneur who helped fund her court battle and offered a large reward for information that may lead to her being set free.
The Sydney Morning Herald speculated that Krew Boylan (A Place to Call Home, Cliffy) may play Schapelle and that Michael Caton and Jacki Weaver could be in the frame to play her parents.
Casting has just started so that conjecture is probably premature.