What happens when the protectors become the enemy of the State?
"The screenplay has been inspired by real cases and from what I witnessed. Hostage of the State explores what happens when the very systems created to protect children destroy families instead. It shines a light on a hidden bureaucracy wielding immense power, often beyond public scrutiny.
"These are three deeply personal stories that profoundly affected me. Like The Jammed, Hostage of the State is raw, uncompromising and emotionally powerful."
"I witnessed these three stories unfold and spent years supporting the families in the hope they would achieve justice. They are still fighting for their children, and this brings an urgency to making the film" Dee Mclachlan writer-director
Kyla and Bella
Once a devoted mother with sole custody of her daughter, KYLA McNAMARA has become a stranger in her child's life.
Fourteen months earlier, BELLA disclosed sexual abuse. But after reporting it, Kyla finds herself drawn into a system where suspicion shifts from the offender to the parent trying to protect her child. Bella is removed into State care, leaving Kyla fighting not only to expose the truth, but to reclaim her daughter.
Jade and Luca
Running parallel is JADE HUNTER, a fiercely independent mother travelling through the outback with her young son, LUCA.
After exposing institutional corruption, Jade's world is shattered when she is violently separated from her son. Branded mentally unstable by the very system she challenged, she faces an impossible fight to bring Luca home.
Sophie, Adan and baby Noah
A third story follows SOPHIA and ADAN, whose newborn son, NOAH, is removed following a disputed medical diagnosis.
What begins as a routine hospital visit descends into every new parent's worst nightmare. Adan is charged with abuse. As they struggle to prove their innocence and fight to bring Noah home, Sophia discovers she is pregnant again.
Atlas Gray
Binding these stories together is ATLAS GRAY — a blacklisted former journalist living on society’s fringes while documenting cases the mainstream refuses to touch. As Atlas digs deeper, disturbing patterns emerge: children removed quickly, families silenced slowly, and decisions made behind closed doors with little accountability and almost no path back.
As the stories converge, Hostage of the State becomes not a courtroom victory story, but a portrait of endurance — of ordinary people confronting institutions far more powerful than themselves while fighting for truth, and the children they love.
Unlike Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, which imagines a dystopian society where the State controls reproduction and separates children from their mothers, Hostage of the State explores the consequences of family separation within a contemporary, recognisable world. It brings a sense of unease and moral disquiet into our reality.
Recent films such as Sound of Freedom and documentaries like Netflix's Take Care of Maya demonstrates a growing audience interest in stories that examine the vulnerability of children and the profound consequences of family separation.
Hostage of the State is a social justice project, and it seeks to provoke conversation, encourage accountability and give voice to thousands of families whose stories have rarely been heard.
Hostage of the State is an intimate, political and deeply unsettling film about power, truth and the erosion of dignity. Ultimately, the film questions whether our humanity itself is in jeopardy.
A confronting and emotionally powerful drama in the spirit of The Jammed, Hostage of the State is inspired by true accounts and explores what happens when the systems designed to protect children begin turning against the very families they are meant to serve.
Australia. The recent past.
A mother stands outside a suburban home on Christmas Eve, watching her nine-year-old daughter through a garden fence. She is forbidden by court order from joining the family celebration inside - even though she has sole custody. She had reported her daughter's disclosures of sexual abuse but authorities did not believe her or her daughter.
She is now a stranger to her family.
She is not alone.
Across Australia, three families—strangers to one another—find themselves drawn into the same hidden world.
Another fiercely independent woman exposes institutional corruption and is violently separated from her young son.
A young couple take their newborn baby to hospital for what they believe is a routine medical check.
They leave without him.
Their stories are brought together by ATLAS GRAY, a blacklisted journalist who begins documenting cases the mainstream refuses to touch. As he follows one family after another, an unsettling pattern emerges. Different cities. Different circumstances. Different people.
The same outcome.
Hostage of the State is a deeply human story about love, loss and the extraordinary resilience of ordinary families confronting institutions far more powerful than themselves.
For millions of years, the survival of our species has depended on mothers protecting their children. What becomes of a society when that instinct is no longer trusted—but treated as evidence against them?
2020 Promo
This is an old promo put together during Lockdown (thanks to Juliet Godwin)
