Meet the Creators of The New Boy

Featuring Warwick Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Kath Shelper and Heather Wallace

Friday 9 February

5:30pm AEST

Join us for a compelling discussion with the creative minds behind THE NEW BOY. Among our panellists is the acclaimed director Warwick Thornton, whose visionary style has left an indelible mark on the film. Learn about the inspirations, challenges, and artistic choices that shaped this cinematic journey from various perspectives, including Thornton's unique directorial viewpoint. This is a rare opportunity for film enthusiasts to get a comprehensive look into the collaborative process that birthed this stunning film. 

Featuring

Kath Shelper

Kath is the producer of many celebrated films including Samson & Delilah, which won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Most recently she produced Warwick Thornton’s latest film The New Boy and Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel for SeeSaw Films. Her previous feature film Ruben Guthrie opened the 2015 Sydney Film Festival and premiered internationally at London Film Festival. Kath produced The Darkside, a hybrid documentary-drama with Warwick Thornton (2014 Berlin Film Festival), ABC TV feature documentary Tender by artist Lynette Wallworth (AACTA Award Best TV Documentary 2015) and two chapters of The Turning feature film (Tim Winton’s short stories project, Berlin Film Festival 2014), with Warwick Thornton and actress Mia Wasikowska in her directing debut. Mia and Kath also made another short film for the Madly anthology (Tribeca 2016). Kath produced Beck Cole’s debut feature Here I Am, which won Best Dramatic Feature at the 2011 Canadian ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. Kath was the President of community organisation Metro Screen for five years and she has served as a jury member for several film festivals including the Sydney Film Festival competition prize.

Warwick Thornton

Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, along with many other awards around the world. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country, along with the Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at Toronto International Film Festival the same year. The New Boy is his third feature film. In recent years, Warwick has made the documentary We Don’t Need a Map, which opened Sydney Film Festival, the slow-TV series The Beach for NITV/SBS that sold to A24 in the US and Firebite, an AMC TV series he co-created that recently premiered on SBS.

Heather Wallace

Heather has a bachelor in visual art, majoring in Sculpture and Art Theory. She also studied at the Centre For The Performing Arts, majoring in Set and Costume design. Heather started her career in Melbourne in theatre and opera before returning to South Australia, transitioning to on-screen mediums. Heather has been in the film industry for 34 years including many years as key standby. For the last 15 years she has been focusing on Costume Design; short and feature film projects including “Samson and Delilah”, “The Babadook”, “Sweet Country”, ”Top End Wedding”, “Mystery Road 1&2”, ”Firebite“ and more .Heather grew up in the southern Flinders Rangers and has a strong connection with the Australian landscape. She is passionate about being involved in storytelling with a strong interest in Australian and indigenous stories.