By Garry Maddox for The Sydney Morning Herald: The immigrant communities of Sydney and Melbourne have supplied some memorable Australian films in recent years. The Italians had Looking For Alibrandi, the Greeks had The Wog Boy and the Chinese had The Home Song Stories.
Lucky Miles centred on Iraqi and Cambodian refugees. The Jammed was about Chinese and Russian women shipped in for the sex trade. And Romulus, My Father had a Romanian with a German wife struggling to adapt to a new land.
Given the tensions since the Cronulla riots, it’s no surprise that filmmakers are now seeing the dramatic potential of Lebanese-Australian stories.
In what seems like a regular occurrence in film – simultaneous projects that sound freakily similar – two dramas centring on ‘full-on Lebs’ are scheduled to start shooting in Sydney in the next three months.