Cate Blanchett is set to star in and produce the feature ‘The New Boy’ from award-winning Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton.

Set in 1940s Australia, the film tells the story of a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair will also star in the project.

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Written and directed by Thornton, Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym will produce the project for Dirty Films alongside Scarlett Pictures principal Kath Shelper.

“What a joy to finally be collaborating with Warwick — a filmmaker whose warmth, wit and humanity we have admired for so very long,” Blanchett said on behalf of Dirty Films. “We can’t wait to be on the ground with him and the wonderful Kath Shelper to realize this startling story.”

Blanchett can currently be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’ alongside Bradley Cooper. In 2017, Thornton’s critically acclaimed film ‘Sweet Country’ won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film is set to begin filming this October on location in South Australia and is scheduled to wrap production at the end of 2022.