By Erin Free
“I was racially abused as a child, but I’d always buried that somewhat,” writer/director Ronnie S. Riskalla tells FilmInk on the line from his Sydney home. “I’d put it down to maybe just being a moody teen whatever, but when I was racially abused again when I was in my thirties, that’s when it really stuck. That’s when I really knew that racism was still out there. Plus, it was a kid that racially abused me. He just threw all these terrible slurs at me, and it really stuck in my mind. I thought things had gotten better in this country, but it just brought back all the bullying I’d experienced for being different. That’s when I knew I had to do something…so I put pen to paper.”
The long-developed result is the gritty Australian drama Streets Of Colour, which is based both on the racism Riskalla had experienced during his childhood and adolescence, and also on the violence and social fracture – as well as the warmth and sense of community – that he witnessed growing up in the western Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt, one of the most notorious postcodes in Australia. Streets Of Colour is the story of Terence “Tez” Hadid (Rahel Romahn), a shiftless, easy-going young Aussie man constantly distancing himself from his Arabic heritage. But when his best friend Akachi (Thuso Lekwape) is killed in a fight with the violently racist older brother of their friend Kyle (Elliott Giarola), Tez’s life implodes. His relationship with Akachi’s sister Tina (Athiei) – who is carrying his child – cracks and crumbles, and two years later, Tez is running drugs for a local dealer, snorting his profits, and denied all access to his young son because he can’t pass a drug test. But with the help of new flame Maddie (Veronica Cloherty) and the emotional guidance of mysterious old local Alexander (Peter McAllum), Tez has the slightest of chances to get his horribly messed up life back on track.
Streets Of Colour has been a seven-year slog for the bitterly determined Ronnie S. Riskalla, who has spent pretty much his entire life connected to film. At the age of four, he was identifying various films on video, before eventually taping his own stuff off TV. He worked for several years as a projectionist from the age of seventeen at the multiplex in Mount Druitt, and then later as a head projectionist at the much bigger multiplex at Wetherill Park. “I always had to be connected to film in some way,” Riskalla explains. “My first job was involved with film in some way…it’s always been my life.”
Riskalla got a video camera during high school (“I was the guy always walking around school filming things with my video camera”), did a short film course at the local PCYC, and eventually studied film at school. Riskalla knew he wanted to be a director and storyteller. After being knocked back by AFTRS because he was too young, he did time at various private filmmaking colleges, did a lot of self-study, learning his craft and making a host of short films along the way. He dipped his toe in the testing waters of feature filmmaking with the 2012 100-minute experimental piece The Day Hollywood Died. And despite meeting the challenges of raising a young family and holding down a full-time job, Riskalla’s commitment to film has always held strong.
Knocked back by all of the traditional Australian funding bodies (despite soundly ticking off many of their boxes with regards to racial diversity and cultural difference), Riskalla scratched away at his screenplay between all of his other commitments, and eventually scraped together the budget for Streets Of Colour off his own back, and through the generous support of a few friends and private investors. “Beg, borrow and steal,” Riskalla laughs. “We had to do whatever we could. We wanted to do everything the proper way too. Like all independent filmmakers, I did about fifteen jobs on the film. I brought the food to the set in my car, but my producer [Yolandi Franken] did a lot of the hard work in terms of raising the money. We shot it in about two months, just before Covid and the lockdowns really kicked off. The cinemas closed with Covid, so that slowed us down. All up, it’s been about seven years…we’ve all made a lot of sacrifices to get the film made.”
Riskalla’s commitment to his material never wavered over that long, difficult journey. As well as wanting to tell a story about racism in Australia, the writer/director also wanted to put his childhood home up on screen. “You never see the outer suburbs on screen,” Riskalla offers. “You see The Inner West, The Harbour Bridge and the outback, but not the outer suburbs. When I’d meet people at various events in the city, I’d tell them that I was from Mount Druitt, and they’d say, ‘What’s it like out there?’ They’d never seen it…apart from maybe some negative pieces on the news. Everything on TV is very negative, and I wanted this film to be a window into that part of Sydney. I didn’t want it to be one-sided. There are a lot of hard-working, blue-collar people in the area. It’s a really varied area…there are all sorts of people there. There are beautiful people there who really help other people who have been through adversity. I really wanted it to be a spotlight on the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Almost as important to the success of Streets Of Colour as its grittily authentic setting is its anchoring performance from young actor Rahel Romahn, who has previously appeared in the likes of The Combination, Shantaram and Here Out West. Powerful, honest and wrenching, Romahn is a revelation, and Riskalla had his eye on the young actor for years. “I met him at a film course when he was just thirteen,” the director explains. “He’s ten years my junior, so he’s from a totally different generation from me, but he’s from Western Sydney too. He had a very rare quality as an actor in that he felt twenty years older than he actually was. He’s a brilliant actor and mimic…even at thirteen, he knew so much about film, and he could talk so eloquently about it. He’d play out his favourite scenes from movies and put them up on YouTube, and he was brilliant. He really knows what it is to be an actor. When I was writing Streets Of Colour, I could just see his face, even though we’d lost contact over the years. We opened up the casting process just in case, but I kind of knew it would be Rahel. I didn’t even audition him in the end. I just gave him the script and he loved it.”
Though harsh and unforgiving in its authenticity, Ronnie S. Riskalla was determined not to make a film that wallowed in negativity, and he provides enough light in the darkness to make sure that Streets Of Colour remains optimistic. “I wanted to give hope to people in the area,” Riskalla tells FilmInk. “A lot of people come out of Western Sydney and end up living successful lives. I wanted to make the film unique, and I wanted it to be relatable to people, especially to those that have experienced difficulty around their cultural identity, as I have, and as Rahel has. It’s very hard being born in Australia, but not feeling like an Aussie. I’d like people to see the film and perhaps realise that it’s okay to speak another language and to embrace your cultural heritage. A lot of children of immigrants have never made peace with that. I think I’ve actually been a bit greedy with what I’ve wanted to say in the film…there’s a lot of stuff packed in there!”
