Back to Bilo

Back to Bilo is the profoundly moving new play from celebrated local company Belloo Creative (Boy, Lost) made with — and from — the heart of regional Queensland.

Priya and Nades left war-torn Sri Lanka and found each other in regional Queensland. They married, had two daughters, worked hard and settled into a simple but happy country life.

Their community welcomed the new family with open arms — until four years later, after an unexpected knock at the door, they were ripped away in a dawn raid. The family’s story could have ended there, but a brave band of Biloela women weren’t giving up so easily. Fighting alongside the young refugee family, the women launched a grassroots campaign that galvanised hundreds of thousands of ordinary Australians demanding the family be brought back home.

This is the remarkable true account of one family’s ordeal in the nightmare limbo of immigration detention, a story proving that love is stronger than fear and that persistence and togetherness can win against crushing odds.