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Supernatural start for festival

THE first of three screenings for the Swan Hill Film Festival is an Australian drama that premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Raising money for the Fight Cancer Foundation and in partnership with Showbiz Cinemas in Swan Hill, The New Boy will open the festival on Friday, October 27.

Swan Hill Fight Cancer Foundation secretary Lois Carnie said the group preferred activities that were social and fun.

“We look to bring films that are not mainstream commercial releases,” Ms Carnie said.

The New Boy is a 2023 Australian drama film written and directed by Warwick Thornton, and starring Cate Blanchett and Deborah Mailman.

Set in mid-1940s Australia, a nameless nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy is captured by police and taken to a remote monastery for Indigenous boys, where he begins to develop supernatural abilities and question his beliefs.

The monastery is seemingly run by a male priest, who has been dead for a year, without anyone knowing the cause.

The lead nun, Sister Eileen (Blanchett) claims to outsiders that the priest is still alive, and forges letters to create this impression.

The film premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in May.

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