Check out the first trailer and poster for Around the Block, an upcoming drama which comes from Australian director Sarah Spillane, and stars Christina Ricci in the leading role. Dreams and hopes, that's exactly what this movie is about. Ricci plays an American teacher who takes a troubled inner-city Sydney youth under her wing, and as you're going to see in the rest of this report – it's not going to be an easy job…
Spillane directed the movie from her own script which, just for a record, won an Australian Directors Guild Award before it even went into production. The film takes an uncompromising look at the lives of a teacher and a student struggling to find themselves in the gritty streets of Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney that's home to the “block” of the film's title.
In other words, Ricci plays a woman named Dino Chalmers, a first-time teacher eager to bring her love of Shakespeare to the vastly diverse student population of a tough school. Her attention soon turns to Liam, an Aboriginal student trying desperately to stay on course despite the fact that his father and brother are criminal royalty in Redfern.
Dino and Liam both become isolated, struggling with issues of identity, race, sexuality, and relentless societal and cultural pressures, to discover (almost too late) that the key to freedom for each of them may lie in the spirit of the other.
Beside Ricci, the rest of Around the Block cast includes Hunter Page-Lochard as Liam, Matt Nable as his father and Mark Coles Smith as Liam's “criminal” brother.
Around the Block will make its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival next month.
Doesn't look bad at all, hope you agree?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYb7zxVeOjo[/youtube]
