Teresa Palmer in Olinda for The Clearing filming based on The Family cult
First it was Eric Bana and Deborra-lee Furness, now another famous Hollywood actor has been spotted in the Dandenong Ranges.
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Actor Teresa Palmer has been spotted filming a new series based on notorious cult The Family in the Dandenong Ranges.
Marquita Telford, owner of Olinda business Rubies and Rust, a gourmet food and giftware store, snapped a picture with the star earlier this week as filming took place for new miniseries The Clearing.
Based on J.P. Pomare’s novel In the Clearing, the show will be a fictionalised account of the cult led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne.
Also starring Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce, the eight-part series is set to screen on Disney+.
Ms Telford said it was exciting to have the production shoot a scene in her store.
“(Teresa Palmer) filmed in our doorway – she walked in and out of the shop about nine times,” Ms Telford said.
“She was gorgeous, she was very sweet – a really lovely person.”
Ms Telford said filming had also taken place around SkyHigh in Mt Dandenong, and at Dudley’s restaurant in Olinda, along with the local fish and chip shop.
It comes just weeks after the cast and crew of Eric Bana’s new movie Force of Nature were spotted filming in the area.
The Herald Sun previously reported The Family cult stole children through adoption scams and held them captive at a house at Lake Eildon, north east of Melbourne, in the 1970s and 1980s. The cult also had property at Ferny Creek and Olinda.
The cult’s founder Anne Hamilton-Byrne initiated at least 28 children into the cult, stealing some and getting others by brainwashing adult sect members. The children were dressed in identical outfits and had their hair bleached, and claim they were starved, beaten and given drugs including LSD.
Hamilton-Byrne, 97, died while in palliative care in a nursing home in Wantirna South in 2019.
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