IN THEATERS APRIL 5, 2019
Directed
by: Shawn Seet
Produced
by: Matthew
Street & Michael Boughen
Screenplay
by: Justin
Monjo
Starring: Jai
Courtney, Geoffrey Rush, Finn Little, Trevor Jamison, Morgana Davies, Erik
Thompson
Theatrical
Release Date: April 5, 2019
US
Distributor: Good
Deed Entertainment
Rating: PG
Run Time: 98 Minutes
Synopsis: A
beautiful and contemporary retelling of Colin Thiele's classic Australian tale.
'Storm Boy' has grown up to be Michael Kingley, a successful retired
businessman and grandfather. When Kingley starts to see images from his past
that he can't explain, he is forced to remember his long-forgotten childhood,
growing up on an isolated coastline with his father. He recounts to his
grand-daughter the story of how, as a boy, he rescued and raised an
extraordinary orphaned pelican, Mr Percival. Their remarkable adventures and
very special bond has a profound effect on all their lives. Based on the
beloved book, Storm Boy is a timeless story of an unusual and unconditional
friendship.
Website: https://stormboythefilm.com/
Story
Synopsis
A
beautiful and contemporary retelling of Colin Thiele's classic Australian tale.
'Storm Boy' has grown up to be Michael Kingley, a successful retired
businessman and grandfather. When Kingley starts to see images from his past
that he can't explain, he is forced to remember his long-forgotten childhood,
growing up on an isolated coastline with his father. He recounts to his
grand-daughter the story of how, as a boy, he rescued and raised an
extraordinary orphaned pelican, Mr Percival. Their remarkable adventures and
very special bond has a profound effect on all their lives. Based on the
beloved book, Storm Boy is a timeless story of an unusual and unconditional
friendship.
A NEW TELLING OF A
CLASSIC TALE
Colin Thiele’s novella Storm Boy,
which tells the story of a young boy and his extraordinary friendship with an
orphaned pelican on South Australia’s remote Coorong National Park, has
enchanted and moved Australians for over half a century.
Sydney based producer MATTHEW STREET (TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, THE
BANK JOB, W, THE MESSENGER) had studied the book in primary school, as many
Australian school children still do, a memory that drew him in 2013 to take
notice of a new stage adaptation.
“The Barking Gecko Theatre Company from Western Australia was staging the
play in partnership with the Sydney Theatre Company,” recalls Street. “I tried
to book tickets for myself and my 11-year-old son, but it was sold out. I
returned to the Ambience Entertainment office and told my producing partner MICHAEL
BOUGHEN.”
Boughen (TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN, THE LOVED ONES, KILLER ELITE)
continues: “I said to Matthew, ‘I didn’t know it was a play’ and he said, ‘Yes,
and the season is fully booked out’. That started me thinking about the Storm Boy phenomenon. I started to
explore the possibilities, spoke to the publishers and within about a month
Ambience had secured the film adaptation rights.”
Street and Boughen had both seen the 1976 film adaptation and strongly
recalled the emotional connection they had with it.
“I was probably the age of Storm Boy at the time, maybe a little
younger,” says Street, “and the film was dealing with life issues that were
relatable to me, as a kid, but to adults as well.”
The producers recognised that the themes of Thiele’s 1963 book are just
as relevant, and in some ways more so, today.
“The themes are universal,” says Boughen. “The story deals with
friendship, with love, with family, loss and hope. It also deals with
ecological issues. It's not overplayed, but there is a message in it that we
need to look after what we hold dear, for ourselves and for future
generations.”
From the outset, the producers wanted to ensure that the new film would
have at its centre the spirit of what makes people want to read Thiele’s book
more than 50 years after its first publication.
However, STORM BOY would not be a remake of the 1976 film. As such,
Boughen and Street decided to remain true to Thiele’s original setting; the
late 1950s. Additionally, Storm Boy’s tale would be set within a contemporary
framework, an additional layer that would give the story and its lessons a new
resonance and relevance. This new storyline would imagine Storm Boy as a
grandfather and extend the exploration of issues around land and the
conservation of the environment.
Screenwriter JUSTIN MONJO (THE SECRET DAUGHTER, SPEAR) was brought in to
work on the adaptation, a process that would continue through the next several
years.
“Our STORM BOY is a complex story in many ways,” says Michael Boughen.
“We spent the next three years writing the script, physically engaging with it,
working out the nuances, understanding the journey of each character.”
With an early draft script in hand, the producers began looking at
possible directors, wanting to find someone who was passionate about the story
and who would be able to draw out the delicate emotional nuances required of
the performances and the storytelling.
SHAWN SEET (TWO FISTS ONE
HEART; DEEP WATER; THE CODE) came up
early in discussions because of his body of work and his ability to work with
actors to create complex performances.
“From the day I met Shawn, my thoughts and Matthew Street’s thoughts
never changed; he was the right person,” recalls Boughen. “The film charts a
difficult emotional journey, which would feature a child in the lead, as well
as animals, but Shawn understands performers and what they need. He was someone
whom we knew could blend all the complex elements together and maintain the
focus of the story. From day one, we shared the same vision and never strayed
from that vision.”
The producers were particularly taken with Seet’s deep and long-standing
connection with the story. “When Michael Boughen asked me to come into the
office and told me what the project was, it hit me like lightning,” says Seet.
“I was born in Australia but grew up in Malaysia and came back when I was
12 to live with my mother’s family. My uncle educated me by taking me to see
Australian films and one of the first he took me to was Storm Boy. It was the era of the film renaissance in Australia, and
there was a great optimism and pride in local films. I still have the film
poster at home, so when Michael told me he wanted to make this film, I felt it
was meant to be.”
On reading the book again, as well as the draft screenplay, Seet was
struck by the ways in which the story allows for a very intimate and individual
experience.
“A lot of what resonated for me was the simplicity of their life, the
respect for nature and the father and son story,” says Seet. “Moving back to a
simpler life are issues and themes that resonate now. We are in a hurly burly
world of phones and computers and I think there’s a great desire in people to
return to a greater harmony with nature. That’s something I really wanted to
capture in this telling of the story.”
Sitting alongside Storm Boy and his father Hideaway Tom is the character
of Fingerbone Bill, a Ngarrindjeri man. The participation and involvement of
the Ngarrindjeri would be vital, as the film is set on their land, and
represents their heritage and culture. The pelican (Nori) is a totem of the
Ngarrindjeri.
“The film touches on land rights issues and that’s incredibly relevant
today, when I think we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of our
relationship with Indigenous people,” says Seet. “We wanted to make the
Indigenous aspects in the film absolutely accurate. It’s a sacred place to the
Ngarrindjeri and the story has come out of that. To tell a story about
unconditional love and living in harmony with the land and with nature could
not be told without their help.”
Street continues: “It was very important to us to connect with the
Ngarrindjeri people and for them to be actively involved and grant permission
for us to film on the Coorong. I think they knew that we would be very
respectful to their ways and beliefs.”
“The Ngarrindjeri people assisted us, consulted with us on script, on
language and on custom,” adds Boughen. “We wove all of that in to create a more
fully formed and truthful story, beyond what was already a great script by
Justin Monjo.”
In Thiele’s book and in the 1959 narrative in STORM BOY, the
environmental issue explored concerns whether a Coorong bird nesting area will
continue to be designated as a hunting ground, or transformed into a
conservation sanctuary. In the film’s contemporary narrative, the film touches
on the issue of mining and its impact on the environment.
Producer Matthew Street says: “It’s about finding a balance, a balance
between human society and not over-exploiting nature and natural resources.
That's what was explored, I think, in Thiele’s work, and hopefully we’ve done
that justice in our telling of the story.”
To portray Michael Kingley — Storm Boy as an adult — in the present day
scenes, Shawn Seet and the producers had one person in mind: Academy Award®
winner GEOFFREY RUSH (SHINE, THE KING’S SPEECH, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN). They
approached the actor during development, in order to allow Rush to be involved
in the process of refining the script.
Producer Michael Boughen says: “We were extremely lucky that Geoffrey
Rush connected with the project. Geoffrey would bring gravitas to the film and
to the role, but for him, as it was for us, the script had to explore the story
in a way that was really worth the retelling.”
Rush, who also came onto the film as an Executive Producer, says: “I got
involved because Shawn Seet, Michael Boughen, Matthew Street and
Justin Monjo explained to me the nature of the reinvention of the story for a
contemporary audience, of trying to find a door that we could open from 2017 to
look back on the story that Colin Thiele set in the 1950s. I hadn’t done an
Australian film for a couple of years, and sometimes roles come up that you
think, ‘Wow, this sounds fantastic’.”
Geoffrey Rush had never seen the 1976 film, as he was studying in Paris
when it was released and chose not to watch the film once he was on board.
“I looked at the trailer of the 1976 film because I wanted to see how it
played,” recalls Rush, “and then I read the short story, after reading the
screenplay. Colin Thiele awakens your imagination. It’s very interesting to
look at how minimalist it is. I think it's only 50 pages of writing and it's a
fable, so the idea for the film of Storm Boy in his late 60s telling his
granddaughter what his experiences were as he was moving from childhood into
adulthood; him telling it as a fable is wonderful because it connects as
personal memory rather than ‘and then I did this, and then I did that’.”
The key was to craft a script in which the transitions between the two
periods were handled with deftness and purpose.
“It had to have a poetic ease to it, so that no one thinks they’re going
to watch a film about somebody narrating it,” says Rush. “Justin Monjo very
skilfully echoed the simplicity of the childhood story into the contemporary
story, taking some of Thiele’s very sensitive language and incorporating that
into the screenplay. It was so visual to read. There were heart stopping
moments; it's thrilling storytelling, and very emotive to see a young child
being awakened into such a love of the natural world.”
The producers and director Seet wanted to shoot the film in South
Australia, which would require support from the South Australian Government
through the South Australian Film Corporation,
as well as from Screen Australia.
“Both organisations were incredibly supportive, both financially and in
our early days of working through the difficulties of financing a film,” says
Michael Boughen. “Financing a film is no easy feat, and particularly one that
we wanted to make with an international cast and international appeal.
Audiences outside Australia generally don’t know Storm Boy as a book or a
story, so the international appeal is the relationship between a boy and his
best friend; a theme that we believe will resonate with audiences around the
world.”
The producers were proud of the way the film was developed, produced, and
the messages it will convey to Australian and international audiences, which
remain true to the spirit of Thiele’s story. “If Colin Thiele was alive today,”
says Matthew Street, “I hope he would give the film his blessing.”
Michael Boughen adds: “A wonderful script was the starting point, then
having Shawn on board, then Geoffrey, and the rest of the incredible cast and
crew. There wasn't a day that I didn't enjoy filming, in watching scenes come
together. I'm incredibly excited and very, very proud of what we achieved.”
Are you ready to see Storm Boy next month? I cannot wait.
Find Theaters + Purchase Tickets: *http://gooddeedentertainment.com/stormboy/
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