Molly & Mobarak

Molly and Mobarak (2003) continues a path I began in the ’90s with Homelands (1993) and Billal (1996) of making observational documentary essays of Australian migrant and refugee families.

The idea for this film came about after researching what happened to refugees once they left the detention centres on Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs). It appeared that while most merged into urban multicultural Australia, a significant number were settling into country towns where there was a shortage of labour.

Afghan “boat people” began arriving in Australia in significant numbers during the late 1990s and early 2000s. This wave of arrivals was largely a result of the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan in 1996, which led to widespread persecution, particularly against ethnic minorities like the Hazara community. The refugees were promptly intercepted and moved to detention centres to have their claims to asylum processed. The majority were assessed as genuine refugees and were given 3-year TPVs which allowed them to live and work anywhere in Australia. However, the TPV meant they couldn’t sponsor their families here, and they were ineligible for a wide range of benefits, including access to English classes. Technically they were second class citizens. It was another form of punishment – the uncertainty of knowing if you were allowed to stay, or that you might have to unwillingly leave Australia.

Young is a small town of 11,000 people four hours’ drive from Sydney. In 2001, 90 Hazara Afghan men were recruited to work at the local abattoir. It didn’t take long for a small group in the community to make it their business to help them. These volunteers, mainly women, were drawn from a wide cross-section of the community: farmers, retired teachers and nurses as well as small business owners. But there was some opposition as well. As far as I was concerned, it all made for a great subject for a documentary. 

I wanted to start filming as soon as I possibly could, committing to self-funding the project in the hope of an eventual pre-sale from either ABC or SBS. In the meantime I met a range of Young locals – one of whom was Lyn Rule, who told me that her daughter Molly, a teacher at the local high school, was giving a young Hazara man driving lessons. I met Molly and asked her permission – could I film the lesson?  She agreed. That’s how I met Mobarak and how the year of filming began. 

As the weeks went by, it quickly became apparent that this was more than just an innocent friendship. Mobarak had romantic intentions towards Molly, which weren’t necessarily reciprocated. I instinctively knew that this could provide the film’s narrative structure as well as its emotional power. I decided to film and record sound myself, something I had only begun to do in the latter stages of making my previous film The Diplomat (2000). This was in the interest of greater access and intimacy. After filming scenes with the family over a number of weekends, Lyn invited me to stay in the house whenever I came down. This gave me the opportunity to film some very intimate moments. In one of them, Lyn and Mobarak have a heart-to-heart discussion about Molly, where Lyn tells him he has to break off the relationship.

The film travels a lot of emotional territory. One can easily become invisible with this kind of filmmaking; people become so used to you with the camera. However, nor would I say that they aren’t at all aware. You are there, the camera is around! Observational documentary making raises a range of ethical issues, most notably the prospect of invasion of privacy and the plausibility of informed consent, but it also admits a degree of collaboration. One consequence of the longevity of the relationship between filmmaker and participant is that complex power relationships emerge. Participants often attempt to negotiate the filmmaking space in order to have active agency. As Kate Nash observes; 

The fact that [Lyn] Rule is able to incorporate Zubrycki’s filmmaking trespasses into what is essentially a positive story of documentary participation, interpreting them as ‘naughty’ but necessary, points to the multifarious nature of trust in this complex relationship.¹

I wanted to tell a fair and accurate story, but I had to do that within boundaries that my participants had set up, which was absolutely fine. The filmmaking process then became a collaborative project with Lyn, Molly and Mobarak being able to retain control over their contribution knowing that they had power of veto over the final cut. 

In the edit, getting the dynamic of the relationship right was quite subtle and tricky. I wanted the viewer to identify with Mobarak’s desires for Molly but also to feel uncomfortable with his emotional neediness. We start to identify with Molly as she’s being suffocated by Mobarak’s cloying affections, then switch to Mobarak as we watch him being pushed out the door by the two women and experience the pain and anguish of his separation from them. 

I often ask myself what the family got out of participating in the film. What led them to tolerate my visits to their family every few weeks? Lyn had a clear motive: she wanted to make a positive contribution to the refugee debate by putting a human face to the many issues asylum seekers were facing at that time. It’s a motive I also shared.

Three months into the film’s release, everything was going well: the film had screened all over country, and there was a lot of media publicity. I was contacted by a pro-refugee lobby group who wanted to set up a screening at Parliament House, Canberra. Labor MP Tanya Plibersek, then a backbencher, agreed to host the event. However, at the last minute the Speaker of the House, Liberal MP Neil Andrew, refused permission for the documentary being shown on the basis that “The film is critical of the Government’s policy, selectively quotes the Prime Minister and promotes the theme of widespread resistance to government policy.”² The incident hit the front page of the Canberra Times. The ban was overturned and the cinema was packed with Canberrans and Parliament staff.  

Mobarak received permanent citizenship six months after the film was made. Whether the film helped or not is hard to say. I would like to believe that the film and the publicity it received on release did help, and fast-tracked the outcome.

21 years after the film was made, the Temporary Protection Visa issue remains. In August 2024 a peaceful vigil was held in Melbourne marking 60 days of ongoing protests urging the Government to grant permanency to 8,500 people who are still waiting for answers on their TPVs. In the last decades thousands of men, women and children have endured uncertainty and fear of deportation. They have raised their families here and want to be able to rebuild their lives with certainty and permanence in Australia. The political and emotional issues that drove me to make Molly & Mobarak have not gone away.

Molly & Mobarak (2003 Australia 87 mins)

Prod Co: Jotz Productions Prod, Dir, Phot: Tom Zubrycki Ed: Ray Thomas Mus: Alistair Spence

Cast: Mobarak Tahiri, Molly Rule, Lyn Rule

Endnotes