EXCLUSIVE: Deadline can unveil the first clip for Australian writer and director Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Un Certain Regard on Friday.
The 1940s Australia set drama stars Cate Blanchett as a renegade nun at a remote monastery which takes in an Aboriginal boy with special powers.
When the monastery takes possession of a precious relic, the child is transfixed as he encounters Jesus for the first time, but his Indigenous spiritual life does not gel with the mission’s Christianity and his mysterious powers become a threat.
Blanchett’s character faces a choice between the traditions of her faith and the truth embodied in the boy, in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.
Producers Scarlett Pictures and Dirty Films have released a first clip showing the first meeting between Blanchett’s character and the boy, played by big-screen newcomer Aswan Reid.
“The film is about the extinction of a completely beautiful, sustainable, caring religion by a big bully. A religion that can co-exist with other spiritualities, but Christianity refuses to co-exist with it,” says director Thornton.
“It’s a small movement in the film, but it’s as big as the collision of planets in the universe – the death of a star, the birth of a black hole. If you don’t pay attention, you will miss it, which is the sadness of humanity in this day and age.
Thornton was previously in Cannes with his first film Samson and Delilah for which he won the Palme d’Or. His last film Sweet Country won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017.
The New Boy is produced by Kath Shelper for Scarlett Pictures, Blanchett, Andrew Upton and co-producer Georgie Pym for Dirty Films, and Lorenzo De Maio (of De Maio Entertainment), with Coco Francini serving as executive producer for Dirty Films alongside Gretel Packer for Longbridge Nominees.
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