New Gold Mountain: behind the scenes

Director Corrie Chen discusses the challenges recreating 1850s Australia for the new SBS series New Gold Mountain.

Set in regional Victoria during the height of the gold rush, New Gold Mountain depicts a part of Australia’s history that has been rarely told and furthermore, from the perspective of the Chinese immigrants.

It was this opportunity that attracted director, Corrie Chen to the project.

“I feel more than ever, we’re… starting to look into our past to better understand ourselves in the present and in the future,” explains Chen. “Even though this show’s set over a hundred years ago, thematically there’s an enormous urgency for this story that makes it incredibly contemporary.”

In this behind the scenes video, Chen talks about filming at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, the challenges of directing all four episodes with a multi-lingual cast and why she and DOP Matthew Temple chose to utilise split diopter lenses for key shots in each episode.

New Gold Mountain is available to stream on SBS On Demand from 13 October, 2021.