How do we unlearn the stories that confine us, and find the courage to write new ones?
- Courtney Collins, Screenwriter, Life Could Be a Dream.
Coercive control:
An ongoing pattern of controlling behaviour aimed to dominate, intimidate, and strip away a person’s independence. It involves manipulation, restriction of freedom, and inducing fear through tactics like financial abuse, extreme monitoring, and isolation from support systems.
Life Could Be a Dream is a fractured fairytale of resilience and grace.
Exploring the often-insidious roadmap of coercive control, director Jasmin Tarasin was inspired to use storytelling and filmmaking to shine a light on a reality that remains widely misunderstood.
Screenwriter Courtney Collins similarly sees the film as a way to help viewers recognise these patterns in real life.
The film follows Sarah, a forty-year-old woman standing at the threshold of a life she has never truly lived, one defined by her own choices rather than someone else’s expectations.
What unfolds is an intimate portrait of survival, reinvention, and the quiet courage it takes to reclaim freedom on your own terms.
Starring Maeve Dermody and Alexander England, and introducing Sonny McGee in a remarkable breakthrough performance, Life Could Be a Dream is the debut feature from Australian filmmaker Jasmin Tarasin and writer Courtney Collins.
Minderoo Foundation supported Life Could Be a Dream because it doesn’t rely on shock or sensationalism to tell its story. At its heart, it’s a story about a mother and son, and the future they are shaping together: something many parents and caregivers will recognise as they watch the film.
This isn’t a harrowing story - it’s a thoughtful, nuanced and ultimately hopeful one.
- Malinda Wink, Minderoo Pictures
In cinemas nationally from 14 May 2026.
For more information, visit: www.lifecouldbeadream.com.au
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