Award-winning actor and producer Anthony LaPaglia unravels an epic story of an Italian organised crime gang THE BLACK HAND which terrorised Italian Australians working around the cane fields of North Queensland in the 1930s.
The riveting series delves back in time to explore an Australian Italian community’s struggles against extortion, arson, kidnap, mayhem and murder by Italian criminals targeting their migrant countrymen in Australia’s deep north.
Against a backdrop of hard times, extreme politics, looming war and the mafia in their midst, the besieged Italian community in Queensland finds the courage to battle old world ways and grasp the opportunity to thrive in a new place.
A personal journey from Queensland cane country to Calabria, Italy seeking answers to a question faced by all those who remake their lives in a new place: what comes with us from the old country, what do we leave behind?
Production credits: A WildBear Entertainment production for the ABC. Principal production funding from Screen Australia in association with the ABC. Financed with support from Screen NSW and Screen Queensland. Directed by Kriv Stenders, Producers Kate Pappas & Adam Grossetti, Executive Producers Alan Erson, Michael Tear & Anthony LaPaglia. ABC Factual Manager Julie Hanna. Acting Head of Factual and Culture Richard Huddleston
