Filmed as 6 ten-minute episodes, new Australian drama series ‘The Tailings’ follows the events that take place after the death of teenage Jas’s father. The tight-knit community of her small town, nestled in the hauntingly beautiful mountains of Tasmania’s West Coast, puts his death down to an accident. Jas does not buy it and embarks on her own investigation of what happened to her dad.
His death coincides with the arrival of Jas’s new schoolteacher Ruby, who comes carrying the burden of her own past trauma. The two slowly develop a mutual trust and as the story unfolds, secrets are exposed, and the truth becomes impossible to ignore.
Emerging stars Tegan Stimson and Mabel Li play Jas and Ruby respectively. In their poignant performances, the two women intimately portray the connecting human experiences of grief, guilt and loss, from the perspective of those living on the margins both socially and geographically.
This is a story about women, made largely by women.
“This is a story about women, made largely by women,” said series director Stevie Cruz-Martin (PULSE). “There is a ferocity and a tenderness running through the core of The Tailings set in lutruwita/Tasmania; it is raw, messy and at times embarrassingly awkward and it was integral to me as a filmmaker to make sure we felt the layered energy of women both on and off screen. I’m also incredibly proud that we were able to shoot such a rare, complex and beautiful story during a pandemic.”
Produced by Liz Doran (Please Like Me, Molly) The Tailings was written by first time scriptwriter and Tasmanian schoolteacher Caitlin Richardson.
Championing the female perspective, and coming from an all-female creative team, Kris McQuade (Rosehaven, Wentworth) leads the show’s ensemble cast, playing Jas’s grandmother who grapples with supporting her granddaughter while also processing the loss of her son. Also featuring in The Tailings are Victoria Haralabidou (Deep Water), Nic English (Reckoning) and Tasmanian talent including Shaun Martindale, Harry Prior, Tai Nguyen, Michael Earnshaw, Jane Hamilton Foster, John Xintavelonis and Sarah Cooper.
“The Tailings is a visually stunning celebration of the tenacity and pride of regional and remote communities. Equal parts compelling, chilling and entertaining, it showcases SBS’s commitment to providing a platform for distinctive stories that are under-represented on-screen with the added innovation of its bitesize digital format,” said Marshall Heald, Director of Television and Online Content at SBS.
The Tailings will be subtitled in five different languages including Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, Hindi and Korean, dropping at SBS On Demand on Friday 2 April.
The Tailings is an SBS Digital Originals series and premieres at SBS On Demand on Friday 2 April. Watch the trailer now:
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