Australian
Screen

Clip description

Molly and Mobarak attend a rally in Canberra in support of the refugees being allowed permanent protection in Australia, Members of the Young community also attend. Jane Keogh from the Refugee Action Committee addresses the crowd. The director Tom Zubrycki observes the irony of the Afghan refugees arriving in Young through a voice-over. This accompanies footage from the 1928 silent film The Birth of White Australia. Molly’s mother Lyn explains this aspect of Young’s history to Molly and Mobarak in a location near where the film was made. Later, as Molly and Mobarak walk off together, Lyn talks about Mobarak’s feelings of homesickness, worry over his future, and the difficulties of being a ‘young man in love’.

Curator’s notes

Mobarak has been fully welcomed as part of Molly and Lyn Rule’s family. This clip reveals the great emotional support Molly provides to Mobarak and Lyn’s feelings as a mother towards him. We have been told throughout the film that Molly has a boyfriend in another town, but it is clear that Mobarak has grown incredibly fond of her. Lyn’s observations about Mobarak reveal the complex psychological and emotional impacts that migration has on a refugee which are further complicated in Mobarak’s case by his romantic feelings for Molly.

Zubrycki includes excerpts from The Birth of White Australia to situate contemporary anxieties towards migrant communities in Young within the broader context of Australian history. The feature film was made in Young with participation by many locals and in part recreates the disputes between white prospectors and Chinese immigrants during the gold rush at Lambing Flat in 1861. That the Hazara community came to Young is an irony that Zubrycki cannot pass over and by tracing a history of racial intolerance in Young (which could be any regional Australian town), he makes a strong point about the need for acceptance of cultural and racial difference in Australia.