Turning the lens on some of the most fascinating and unreported stories from Australia’s diverse and eclectic communities, Untold Australia is returning to SBS for a third season.
Made up of four stand-alone broadcast documentaries, the new season features two gripping Victorian productions: Unicorn Films’ Outback Rabbis and Chemical Media’s Australia’s Forgotten Islands which both lend their unique snapshot of multicultural stories across Australia.
Outback Rabbis is an upbeat and colourful observational documentary lifting the lid on Australia’s orthodox Chassidic Jewish Rabbis and the lives of a hidden or lost community of Jews living in the Aussie outback.
This humorous and insightful doco is written/directed by Danny Ben-Moshe and produced by Lizzette Atkins and Rhian Skirving of Unicorn Films.
The moment Ben-Mosche started brainstorming ideas for the SBS series and mentioned a group of outback rabbis traversing Australia’s wide frontiers searching for Jews, Lizzette and the team were hooked. “The story had everything you want – drama, surprise, humour, intrigue and stunning locations,” Lizzette said. “The highlight during the production for me was experiencing the interaction with not only the lost Jews but also the members of the remote communities in Central Australia. ‘Untold’ is the key here. SBS’s Untold Australia series is doing something very important and by telling these stories. It adds to the richness and diversity of our society we live in today.”
Outback Rabbis premieres 23 May at 8.30pm on SBS
Australia’s Forgotten Islands will shine a light on the remote and little-known Cocos Islands several thousand kilometres off the west coast of Australia, inhabited by two very distinct cultures: a band of voluntary castaways from the mainland, and a tight-knit community of Muslim Coco Malays.
Australia’s Forgotten Islands is produced by Tony Jackson, written by David Collins and Jackson, and directed by Ben Pederick.
Tony Jackson reflected on what drew his attention to the story, saying: “It was this image of two tiny islands – one home to a kampong of pious Muslims, the other to a transient community of quite hedonistic Anglo Aussies, facing each other across a narrow lagoon in the vastness of the Indian Ocean. It sounded like the set up for some sort of reality TV social experiment. I see it as a story about a community that's carrying a lot of historical baggage and which could easily be traumatised and divided, but which has chosen to focus on the things that unite them rather than the things that divide them. SBS's Untold Australia series does a fantastic job of reminding us that this country is more diverse, more interesting and more kooky than most of us ever give it credit for.”
Australia’s Forgotten Islands premieres 30 May at 8.30pm on SBS