Dylan River’s Toronto Series ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ Explores Australia’s Dark History With Humor: ‘If You’re Preaching to the Converted, How Are You Educating?’ (EXCLUSIVE)
“Thou Shalt Not Steal,” an upcoming Australian series that premiered three of its eight episodes at the Toronto International Film Festival, is an entertaining road trip that cleverly tells an Aboriginal tale through use of humor and dozens of instantly recognizable Australia stereotypes.
It is packaged as eight half-hour episodes that will upload to Australian streamer Stan on Oct. 17. International rights are handled by DCD Rights.
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Told through the eyes of a young Aboriginal delinquent woman (Robyn, portrayed by “Heartbreak High” star Sherry-Lee Watson), “Thou Shalt Not Steal” races through a 1980s-medley of toxic masculinity, functioning alcoholics, snags on the barbie, reverence for the Outback and the quiet wisdom of the indigenous population.
But it is a fun and inviting ride as Robyn and an awkward white teenager (played by fellow “Heartbreak” star Will McDonald) flee her small central desert community in a stolen taxi. On their heels – and sometimes ahead of them – are a snake-like ex-hooker and the boy’s domineering father, a fraudulent preacher. The older pair are gleefully played by Noah Taylor (“Peaky Blinders,” “Game of Thrones”) and Miranda Otto (“The Clearing,” “Talk to Me”).
Director Dylan River says the story came from the things he saw around him growing up in Alice Springs — but with an ’80s twist.
“It originally came from a series I made called ‘Robbie Hood,’ which was for SBS. It was looking at, how could we keep that tone and make it a little bit longer? I didn’t want to do the same story,” River tells Variety. “Setting it back in the 1980s was one way [of making it different], and it’s got cool muscle cars. It was also an opportunity to stay away from mobile phones and modern story constructs. Mobile phones are a bit of a cop out when it comes to storytelling.”
The son of Warwick Thornton and producer Penelope McDonald, River is film royalty in Australia and has previously directed “Mystery Road: Origin.” But clearly, his environment is rich in history and cinematic opportunity. He tells Variety that the story came from “a place of trauma.”
“I want to tell stories close to home, stories that are relevant to me,” River says. “And it’s the truth in this as much as any of my other work.”
Though he was born in 1992, River grew up hearing stories about the ’80s through his family and felt a kinship with that generation.
“My father was quite young when he had me, and was a teenager in the ’80s. And my uncles, my aunties, they all tell stories at family dinners and the pub about what they used to get up to. And I kind of wish I was around then,” he says. Especially in Central Australia, it was a very lawless sort of kind of space. Fun, often illegal, inspiring.”
In a fashion that is typical of the Australian TV commissioning environment, hatching the script was an initial slow process, followed by a rush.
“During COVID lockdown, I wrote a 300-page treatment about Robyn, who met up with the young fella Gidge and went on a road trip between Alice Springs and Adelaide. I always knew she was going to meet up with her white father who lived somewhere south. The treatment is different to the end result, but it definitely got all the locations on the page, the characters and the episodic structure,” he says. The following two years were intense, working with Tanith Glynn Maloney (“Windcatcher,” “Finding Jedda”), the show’s co-screenwriter and co-creator, who also serves as EP. “I tried to bring people in this world that I’m observing, people that are older than me, people that could add a female perspective,” says River.
The process took a sudden lurch forward once the show found public and private sector backers.
“We had scripts for the first two episodes that were written. They changed, but they were written and we had outlines for the first six episodes. When we got funded came the tricky point. You’ve got a greenlight, two scripts and a date. We had six months to write the first two episodes and four months to write the next six. Looking back now, the energy that’s created with a deadline, you can’t beat it.”
The 1980s setting and the lead character’s escape from juvenile detention takes the story close to Australia’s shameful “Stolen Children” era (roughly 1900-1970), when federal, state and church authorities forced Aboriginal and mixed race people to assimilate, often by removing children from their families. But River deliberately treats the subject with humor, larger-than-life characters and instantly recognizable set-ups.
“There’s a lot of themes in this [show] that are similar to other films that have been made in Australia. But to approach it with comedy makes it more accessible to a wider audience,” he says. “A lot of important films have been made in Australia. Often, they get played to people who are already on board with the message, and they love the film and they celebrate the film. But if you’re preaching to the converted, how are you educating the Australian population? With comedy, hopefully people will watch this who usually wouldn’t watch an Aboriginal, indigenous drama. They see the humor in it. The cars, the road trip. They’ll see something else.”
River adds, “I’ve definitely not tried to shy away from being a bit cheesy, being a bit self-aware, and being over the top at times. Hopefully there’s twists and turns that people don’t expect. But it was very consciously, like, let’s have fun.”
River’s contention is that once hooked, viewers will stay on for the ride.
“We showed three episodes in Toronto. Those were the set-up [segment] to then really punch home the story for the next five episodes,” he says. “And the response was really good. People laughed and clapped.”
The series is produced by Ludo Studio with Charlie Aspinwall and Daley Pearson (“Bluey,” “Robbie Hood”) and Sophie Miller (“The Family Law”) as executive producers, alongside Ludo Studio producer Sam Moor (“Bluey”) with Since 1788 Productions. Cailah Scobie and Donna Chang executive produce for Stan. “Thou Shalt Not Steal” received major production investment from Screen Australia with support from the South Australian Film Corporation, Screen Territory and by Screen Queensland’s Post, Digital and Visual Effects (PDV) Incentive.
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