Finding her missing dad who is facing deportation, fighting off a garbage monster taking over the city and unearthing a government cover-up are all part of Priya's hectic life as a teen refugee in a new television series.
The Disposables debuts on Friday on ABC and also on TikTok in two-minute clips over several weeks in a bid to attract younger viewers.
Sumi Gunaratnam, 25, plays 16-year-old Priya, whose Tamil father goes missing a day before a critical interview with Australian authorities about his temporary visa.
If he does not show up, the family is deported back to Sri Lanka where they face persecution.
"The main thing that I wanted to focus on is telling the story correctly because I wanted to honour the truth and experiences of refugees in my performance," Gunaratnam told AAP.
The actor drew on her own experiences as a young Tamil woman growing up in Australia to portray Priya's adventures and presence on screen.
"You start to understand that your parents have left their country to seek freedom and fight for a better life. There's nothing more badass than that."
Series co-creator and director Renny Wijeyamohan, also from a Tamil background, says the inspiration for the show came from the public ordeal of the Murugappan family in Biloela and the groundswell of support they received.
"Biloela intrigued me because it was salt of the earth, Queensland rural voters leading the campaign," he told AAP.
"We wanted to explore this idea thematically of how Biloela represented the temporary protection visa system (which is) structurally designed to oppress, really."
The Murugappan family, who escaped Sri Lanka by boat due to conflict targeting the minority Tamils, were given temporary protection visas but then uprooted from Biloela in 2018.
In the following years they were held in a Melbourne detention centre, then detained on Christmas Island before being placed in community detention in Perth.
The Albanese government exercised its power under the Migration Act to allow the family to return to Queensland last year after a long campaign by activists.
In The Disposables, Wijeyamohan and his co-creators use the "creature feature" genre to drive the story, which is shot in a fast-paced live-streaming style to emphasise the characters' race against time, which echoes the real-life experience of refugees.
"Families and individuals have no certainty about their future in Australia and are required to continuously reapply for visas with the threat of deportation always hanging over them," he said.
He hopes the show will appeal to a wide audience attracted to storytelling but also open up larger conversations about how refugees are portrayed and treated.
"We need to develop a more sustainable model instead of closing our borders and closing our hearts ... that results in practical and pragmatic change," he said.
