The Airport Chaplain
Hugo Weaving and Shabana Azeez lead the cast of this compelling new drama series about a chaplain with an unorthodox approach to solving an airport’s daily crises, consistently overstepping boundaries to help passengers and workers alike.
At a bustling international airport, lost people seek missed connections, while others carry heavy personal baggage. Tobias Wallace (Hugo Weaving, The Rooster, MIFF 2023) shepherds them all. Scruffy and benevolent in his hi-vis “Chaplain”-printed vest and always on call, he’ll bend rules to help passengers and workers alike – that includes Asha, a young woman hiding in the prayer room whose murky history stirs Tobias’s own deeply buried traumas. Not everybody is a fan of his methods, however: ambitious new terminal manager Mira (Shabana Azeez, The Pitt; Lesbian Space Princess, MIFF 2025) has liability nightmare Tobias marked for redundancy. But as crises appear everywhere – overworked baggage handlers, security breaches, families torn apart and grief-stricken relatives – maybe this infuriating chaplain could be Mira’s salvation.
Multi-award-winning screenwriter Elise McCredie (Stateless; Ride Like a Girl) based this much-anticipated new drama series, commissioned by SBS, on co-creator and Wooden Horse producer Jude Troy’s (The Clearing) encounter with a Melbourne Airport chaplain who helped her recover a lost handbag – and her identity. In this world premiere of the first three episodes, director Bonnie Moir (Not Dark Yet, MIFF 2022) warmly illuminates a morally complex protagonist, while his multicultural, multigenerational co-workers are portrayed by a fully booked flight of Aussie talent, from screen legend Claudia Karvan (Bump; The Big Steal, MIFF 2017) and Thomas Weatherall (Heartbreak High; Narrow Road to the Deep North) to Kavitha Anandasivam (The Hunting) and Erroll Shand (Wolfram).
Tickets
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