ONEFOUR

Against All Odds

“They’ve made the biggest cultural impact on the scene in Australia, and they haven’t been able to perform here.”

– The Kid Laroi

“ONEFOUR: Against All Odds is a story about resilience, love and a shared drive to make it out of a set of expectations society has placed upon you because of your social and cultural circumstance.”

– ABC News

The Context.

Australia prides itself on being a multicultural nation. We’ve crowned “We Are Australian”, our unofficial anthem, and at pubs and parties across Australia, everyone sings along to the chorus “we are one, but we are many, and from all the lands on earth we come”.

The reality of Australian life as a person of colour is very different. The country continues to grapple with its colonial history, and struggles to create a culture that’s representative of our diverse culture and history. 

This is true for Australia’s Pacific Islander community, who are portrayed and perceived by many Australians in only three ways - as footballers, fruit pickers, and future criminals.

This tension is exacerbated in Sydney’s western suburbs, where a large Pacific Islander community is routinely marginalised, and treated with suspicion by default by the police. 

They’re provided with few pathways out from a self-fulfilling cycle of confrontation with the law, and even fewer opportunities for representation and self determination.

Out of this environment rose ONEFOUR, a drill and rap music group, who found meteoric success - and unprecedented police profiling and mainstream media criticism.

The Trailer

The Doco.

Shot over four years, ONEFOUR: Against All Odds tells the story of ONEFOUR as they create Australia’s drill scene from scratch, run into endless opposition from police, and challenge the very foundations of Australian cultural expectations. 

Director Gabriel Gasparitos details the tension between the street groups, police, mainstream media and the fans of ONEFOUR, creating a must-watch documentary that cuts to the core of modern Australian culture.

By capturing interviews with Australian investigative reporters, the most senior members of NSW’s police and ONEFOUR themselves, which are paired with archival footage, music videos, and fan content, Gasparitos crafts a story with pace and real impact - both on the viewer, and on the discourse about censorship in Australia and beyond. 

Through the story of ONEFOUR, the documentary also unpicks the story of Pacific Islanders and other people of colour in Australia, their past and future as cultural contributors, and the changing face of Australia - from Chris Hemsworth and Steve Irwin to J Emz and Spenny.

The Impact.

  • 230M global impressions on social.

  • Triggered a reckoning with police powers in NSW.

  • Started a conversation – in Australia and beyond – about what it means to be Australian.

  • Reached #2 in Australia, and #3 in NZ on Netflix.

Not even a #Onefour fan, but this Netflix documentary was eye-opening. To see the lengths the NSW police went to to stop them performing. A must-watch!

Watched the documentary about Drill group OneFour, didn’t realise quite how racist Aussie cops are, and how draconian their laws must be to enable their harassment of OneFour.

The OneFour documentary was kinda insane. Openly systematically oppressing POCs and not having a lick of shame about it. I want them to win.

wildest part of the onefour: against all odds documentary is the nsw police talking like they think they’re the main characters of the movie. like their continued harassment and systematic silencing of pasifika musicians is somehow fair, or righteous.

“A Voice for Pasifika Communities of Western Sydney.”

– ABC Radio

“We didn’t even know there was going to be conflict between the group and police: Inside ONEFOUR: Against All Odds.”

– Rolling Stone

“Football, Factories or Prison: How ONEFOUR is shifting Australian stories.”

– The Latch

What’s next?

The story of ONEFOUR isn’t finished – and just as their music continues to blow up, the documentary captured their resilience, passion, and pursuit of more from their lives than what’s expected.

Join the conversation on TikTok (#OneFour), and stay tuned – what happens next will be huge.