Cate Blanchett is set to star in Australian television series “Stateless,” which she co-created, alongside Tony Ayres and Elise McCredie. The six-part drama series follows a group of people stuck in an immigration detention center.
Yvonne Strahovski and Dominic West also star. Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, will produce via their Dirty Films banner, along with the Australian Broadcasting Corp., Screen Australia and Matchbox Pictures. NBCUniversal will distribute worldwide. Production will begin in June at South Australia’s Adelaide Studios.
“Whilst this story centers 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,” Blanchett said in a statement.
Per the Australian Broadcasting Corp., the series focuses on four strangers in an immigration detention centre in the Australian desert. They are comprised of an airline hostess escaping a suburban cult, an Afghan refugee fleeing persecution, and 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. 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.
Written by McCredie and Belinda Chayko, Emma Freeman and Jocelyn Moorhouse will direct, and Sheila Jayadev and Paul Ranford will produce for Matchbox Pictures. Blanchett, Upton and Ayres will executive producer. McCredie will serve as showrunner and executive producer, with Liz Watts also executive producing. Sally Riley and Andrew Gregory executive produce for the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Other cast members include Jai Courtney, Asher Keddie, Fayssal Bazzi, Rachel House, Kate Box, Clarence Ryan, Claude Jabbour, Rose Riley and Helana Sawires.
“We were so pleased to support the development of this landmark series, with its all-female writing and directing team including some of Australia’s leading key creatives,” South Australian Film Corp. chief executive Courtney Gibson said.