This film was released 2nd April 2010 and is no longer screening.

IFI TEEN SCREEN
Special Samson & Delilah screening for our monthly film club (age 15-18).
April 21st, 4.30. Email teenscreen@irishfilm.ie for more information.

In its native Australia, Warwick Thornton’s first feature has generated critical acclaim, a raft of awards and much public debate about its uncompromising picture of the Aboriginal community’s deep estrangement from the white cultural mainstream.

In the desert outpost where the film begins, basic infrastructure and health facilities are in place, but there’s absolutely nothing to indicate a future for teenagers Samson and Delilah (Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson), so they head for the nearest civilisation in Alice Springs, where outright hostility awaits. Whether it’s substance abuse, charity handouts, violence or exploitation, Thornton outlines the numerous threats to their self-respect, but while certainly confrontational, his film’s never a one-sided exercise in self-pity, calling on his own Aboriginal brethren to take responsibility and display the inner resilience shown by his central characters. His performers give everything to a filmmaker in total control of his medium, delivering what is, frankly, a modern classic. Experience the anger, feel the passion.