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Director Corrie Chen has hit a stride in her career where she is able to make projects she really believes in.

Tonight is the premiere of one such example in Sbs/Goalpost Television’s New Gold Mountain, with Chen having directed all four episodes.

Set in 1857 Ballarat, the mini-series looks at the gold rush from the perspective of Chinese miners, with the story unravelling around a murder mystery. The stellar ensemble cast includes Yoson An, Alyssa Sutherland, Christopher James Baker, Dan Spielman, Mabel Li, Leonie Whyman, Sam Wang, Rhys Muldoon, Alison Bell, Chris Masters Mah and Travis Cotton.

Sbs director of content Marshall Heald has called New Gold Mountain the broadcaster’s “most ambitious drama yet”, with producer Kylie du Fresne noting it draws inspiration from Deadwood. The series is dense in detail in terms of costuming and production design, and boasts a diverse cast of around 65 speaking roles, all in multiple languages,...

In Goalpost Pictures’ gold rush drama New Gold Mountain, Alyssa Sutherland plays a widow who overcomes the trauma of an abusive marriage and embarks on a quest for greater independence in 1850s Australia.

While it may be easy to classify her turn as Belle Roberts as a strong female character, the actress told If it was a description she was hoping to avoid.

“I like the attention we put on having much more well-rounded female characters but I get a little bee in my bonnet sometimes when all this focus gets put on these ‘strong female characters’,” she said.

“Women are just strong – that’s how it is.

“All the women in my life are very interesting and compelling people – it’s just taken a while to see the same thing on screen.”

Filmed at Sovereign Hill and around Melbourne and regional Victoria last year, New Gold Mountain follows the...

New Gold Mountain brings to the screen the untold story of the Chinese miners who arrived in the Victorian Goldfields in their thousands in the 1850s to try to make their fortune. Using inspired-by-real-life characters and shining a light on forgotten events, this revisionist Western is based in the harsh wild west era of the Australian gold rush and unearths a murder mystery.

Filmed in Sovereign Hill and around Melbourne and regional Victoria, the epic four-part series from Goalpost Television will air over two weeks, starting October 13 at 9.30pm on Sbs and Sbs On Demand.

Directed by Corrie Chen, New Gold Mountain stars Yoson An, Alyssa Sutherland, Christopher James Baker, Dan Spielman, Mabel Li, Leonie Whyman, Sam Wang, Rhys Muldoon, Alison Bell, Chris Masters Mah and Travis Cotton.

The mini-series is created and written by Peter Cox and produced by Kylie du Fresne and Elisa Argenzio. Writers include Yolanda Ramke,...

Sbs unveiled its largest ever local drama slate at its upfronts today, including a new four-part crime series from Bunya Productions and Caama, Copping it Black, to be directed by Erica Glynn and Steven McGregor.

Next year will also see the broadcaster air a hefty roster of local unscripted projects, including the seven one-off docs produced via the Australia Uncovered initiative, and landmark factual series covering off on topics such as domestic violence, adult literacy, disability, ageism and obesity.

Goalpost’s gold rush drama New Gold Mountain, delayed due to Covid-19, is now underway in Victoria, with Yoson An, Alyssa Sutherland, Christopher James Baker, Dan Spielman, and Mabel Li toplining the cast.

Set in the Bendigo Goldfields in 1855, it follows the charismatic headman of the Chinese mining camp who suddenly finds himself struggling to maintain the fragile harmony between Chinese and European diggers and authorities when a murdered European woman...

Fayssal Bazzi. (Photo: Amelia J Dowd)

Actor Fayssal Bazzi’s father is Lebanese and his mother is Syrian, so for much of his career he was determined to avoid being typecast as Arabic characters, particularly criminals and terrorists.

After scoring the lead role in Mark Grentell’s comedy-drama The Merger, he has enjoyed a higher profile and portrayed a diverse range of characters.

“I just want to play characters whose ethnicity is incidental and I’ve been lucky to be able to do that in the past few years,” he tells If.

Earlier this year he played the son-in-law of Damon Herriman’s seedy night club owner in the second season of FX/Foxtel’s Mr Inbetween, created by and starring Scott Ryan and directed by Nash Edgerton. That was his second collaboration with Herriman following Abe Forsythe’s 2015 Cronulla race riot drama Down Under.

Currently he is in Adelaide shooting Stateless,...