When an Aboriginal child arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun, the new boy’s presence disturbs a delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.
The New Boy
Project Type: Feature Film
Year: 2023
Screen NSW support: Production Finance
Companies: Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures
Writer/Director/Director of Photography: Warwick Thornton
Production details: IMDb page
From Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures comes writer-director Warwick Thornton’s Cannes-selected film The New Boy. In a remote monastery in 1940s Australia, a mission for Aboriginal children is run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett). A new charge (Aswan Reid) is delivered in the dead of night – a boy who appears to have special powers. When the monastery takes possession of a precious relic, a large carving of Christ on the cross, the new boy encounters Jesus for the first time and is transfixed. However, the boy’s Indigenous spiritual life does not gel with the mission’s Christianity and his mysterious power becomes a threat. Sister Eileen is faced with 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.
