Scattered People: Life Changing

by Sofia Paul

“I had as a patient Robbie James, the lead guitar from GANGgajang, iconic Australian band. He said he was making an album with people seeking asylum and it really piqued my interest.”

So much so that the result is documentary Scattered People, which explores a band of the same name, who fought authority to perform music for refugees in a Brisbane detention centre.

Now the world premiere of Scattered People, released through the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Association, will take place in Sydney on June 17, timed for Refugee Week which starts June 20. 100 percent of the profits will be sent to asylum seeker organisations of choice by the institute holding the screening.

For John, working in the health field, and Lizzi, a teacher’s aide, this project was new territory.

“I’d always loved photography, the image… and we’ve always loved films. Because we were beginning to work with cameras and interviews, Lizzi realised that she loved interviewing people. She’s very curious and has a way with them.”

The Swatlands are grateful for their team who helped navigate the world of filmmaking.

“Our editor [Lindi Harrison] is a top editor and we said, ‘well let’s get the best that we can’,” John says.

“There are so many aspects to making a film, we had to get specialists to help us in all those areas.”

John and Lizzi also founded Being Reel Films with an aim to produce work that makes an optimistic change.

John said he wanted to step outside his first occupation by looking at different ways of healing.

Brian Precopis, the founder of Scattered People shared how they attempted to get into the detention centre as case workers, psychologists and a team to share their services from Lifeline, who he worked for at the time, but the answer was no. A few weeks after, he rang back and asked whether they could come as musicians to play music with the people and the response was a yes.

“Art opened the door for that and what they found was that the results they got with music was probably just as good as they would’ve got counselling,” John said.

“All those stories were put into song, so they are always alive,” Lizzi said.

The film also follows Iranian asylum seekers, Saha and Mas, both aspiring musicians. Missy Higgins and John Butler are just some of the well-known musicians that band together for the cause.

The filmmakers connected with the refugees instantly. After driving from the Gold Coast to Brisbane to meet Mas, they felt so welcomed by the young man and his father.

“They just brought all this food out, like we’d known them for years,” Lizzi said.

The couple provided him and Saha with a safe space to share their experiences.

Although, on the drive back home, the emotions hit.

“The tears just came; John was just silent and we drove in silence. We thought – what can we do? And that was the beginning.”

Meeting the two, allowed the filmmaking duo to come to a realisation. Originally, they were ambivalent, but understood that the treatment of refugees was unjust. However, after speaking with Mas and Saha, they found it rehumanised them.

“My feeling is, once we connect with people that we don’t know anything about, we have an empathy with them and their situation. We want everyone to have that sort of feeling with newcomers to Australia,” John said.

John said he and Lizzi were lucky to have such willing subjects, as many people seeking asylum do not want to speak of what they have endured.  Doing so could also harm their VISA process but Mas and Saha wished to help others in their situation.

“It was their generosity and vulnerability. They opened up beautifully,” John said.

Lizzi said that Saha and Mas had become their family.

“Saha moved to Melbourne, but we’d fly her up and she’d stay with us.”

Now back in Iran, Saha is still in Lizzi’s heart and always will be.

“She says that she was broken by our system and she was never supported,” Lizzi said.

The husband and wife team discovered how heartbreaking the refugee experience truly was.

“For me, I have no idea what it would be like to give everything up, get on a boat, not knowing if you’re going to live or going to die, leaving everything you’ve ever known behind you, arrive in a country that’s incredibly unwelcoming. To go into detention after detention, not being able to speak English…”

At a screening in Sydney, after a very moved woman said she had no idea about the situation, the two knew they had completed the first step.

“This is happening, it happened, so what can you do to help? That’s the message we’d like,” Lizzi said.

John believes, “we all have a certain amount of power and it’s making choices to use that power in a good way.”

Scattered People premieres at the Randwick Ritz Cinema on Thursday June 17. The screening, presented by the Asylum Seekers Centre, will be followed by a Q&A with John and Lizzi Swatland, plus two of the stars of the film – Iranian musician Mas and Scattered People musical director, Robbie James from GANGgajang.

Additional special screenings are set to take place all around the country, in the lead up and during Refugee Week and beyond. 

Full event information and tickets are available at scatteredpeoplefilm.org

You can also support the Scattered People band in their work by buying copies of their albums – featuring performances by Mas, Saha and many other participants in the groups’ programs. Available from Waterfront Records, waterfrontrecords.com/Catalogue, and other online music stores.