Ballarat Film Society – The New Boy

The New Boy is set on a remote mission for Aboriginal children in the 1940s run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen. A new charge is delivered in the dead of night – a boy who appears to have special powers – and so begins the interactions between the mission staff, the other children and ‘the new boy’.

A collaboration between Blanchett and Thornton, the film is at times quite aethereal and will leave visions that may linger. Aswan Reid was the second boy that Thornton auditioned for the part of the ‘new boy’ and was amazed at his performance.

The New Boy is a complex film and an intriguing exploration of Aboriginal spirituality and the coming of a new cosmology – Christianity through the eyes of an innocent Aboriginal child. Understanding the removal of children during the colonial era through Thornton’s eyes is a necessary education. The musical score is a Nick Cave and Warren Ellis collaboration, so this is truly a film made of modern Australia. Roadshow.

Australia, 2022, 116 min.
Written and directed by Warwick Thornton. Stars: Aswan Reid, Cate Blanchett, Wayne Blair and Deborah Mailman. Filmed near Burra in South Australia.