Cate Blanchett is about to meet a child who will change her life forever.
Blanchett stars as a nun in Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy” who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy (Aswan Reid). IndieWire debuts a new clip from the film, featuring Reid and Blanchett in a lyrical moment.
“The New Boy” premiered at Cannes and will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, September 14. It’s set in 1940s Australia, and follows the Aboriginal orphan boy (Aswan Reid) who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett). His presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival. Deborah Mailman, Wayne Blair, and Kenneth Radley also star, with Nick Cave covering the score.
Oscar winner Blanchett produced the film through her Dirty Films banner, with Roadshow Films distributing for Australia and New Zealand, and CAA Media Finance and UTA handling sales for North America. “The New Boy” was filmed in South Australia, with production funding from Screen Australia’s First Nations Department, which focuses on the lives of the country’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Joel Pearlman, CEO of Roadshow Films, called “The New Boy” a “unique Australian film” with direct ties to the history of the nation.
IndieWire’s Cannes review harkened back to Thornton’s own personal upbringing being raised by monks. The review called the film a “spiritual fairytale” that teaches why “Christianity must make room for Aboriginal spirituality, and all other schools of thought in the world we live in, full of new boys. That Thornton has found a language to tell this loud, and find magic in it, could be a tiny miracle in itself.”
