The sun will rise for you features a film following a day in the life of an Asian delivery rider in Melbourne. At night, all the pressures and desires of the character come to the surface in his dreams. When he wakes up, he must continue his life as usual. His anxieties, fuelled by his precarious socio-economic circumstances, are reinforced by scenes depicting stark differences in urban gentrification throughout Melbourne as he makes deliveries across the city. Li's film Where is my friend's home? asks us to question: what does the 'Australian Dream' mean today?
Australia is considered a multicultural country. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data from June 2023, one-third of the population was born overseas. Many of these migrants need to take up low-skilled, insecure jobs when they first arrive in Australia to support themselves financially, including delivery riders working in the gig economy. These riders are mostly made up of international students and other temporary visa holders. In their daily busy, mundane, and sometimes dangerous work, they endure physical exhaustion. They also experience mental fatigue that is often unnoticed by others, influenced by constantly changing immigration policies, difficulties in renting accommodation, and homesickness. Meanwhile, the Australian government is reshaping its immigration policy to attract skilled immigrants who are genuinely needed. But how do we define a skilled immigrant? Considering this complex question, Ji Li visited numerous delivery riders and made a short film interweaving their experiences with his own, as a delivery rider without stable housing himself. Li shares the perspectives of delivery riders and first-generation immigrants who are often misrepresented within Australian screen culture – a symptom of a wider lack of understanding and support for these communities.
