Rural Australians for Refugees will be screening 'Scattered People' at Griffith Regional Theatre

The group will be playing the recently released movie Scattered People, chronicling the journeys of Iranian asylum seekers Mas and Saha and the Scattered People band as they try to use music to connect people and and heal.

Mas finds himself in exile from Iran after being caught playing Western music, while Saha discovers the music secretly and discovers a passion for it - but is unable to play or sing music as a woman in Iran.

The movie exploring their story will be playing at the Regional Theatre on June 28 at 6.30pm, with half the money raised remaining with Griffith RAR for it's future endeavours while half will go towards Operation Not Forgotten.

Operation Not Forgotten is a program to sponsor refugees and asylum seekers who get caught in Australian or overseas detention - raising funds to help them relocate to Canada.

Michael Thompson, a member of the local branch, spoke about the movie and it's effect.

"It's about music being able to make a difference, they've got a whole lot of people talking about music and it's impact," he said.

"One of the themes of the movie is that it's a refugee experience, it's not a refugee identity. What they're trying to do is to show that immigrants and asylum seekers are people, they're not just migrants or just refugees."

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Mr Thompson said the theme of music resonated with him.

"The world is pretty shithouse to start with, and if music becomes evil, there's not much hope for anything," he said.

He added that in addition to raising money for a worthwhile cause, he found that RAR was increasingly in a position to help support creative outlets for asylum seekers, activists and other likeminded groups.

"The RAR becomes an outlet for the filmmakers. Scattered People is an independent production but it has to be distributed somehow ... RAR is a network now, I think the word spreads."

Tickets to the screening are available through the Griffith Regional Theatre's website.

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