Dark Frontier

A father who is running from the evils of the larger world finds they've arrived on his doorstep in this drama from Australian filmmaker Kriv Stenders. Nat (Aden Young) is a former schoolteacher and widower who idealistically has left the city and traveled with his children Tom (Toby Wallace) and Sarah (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) to remote area in the bush, where he's taken up farming. Unfortunately, Nat has almost no practical knowledge of agriculture, and while 12-year-old Tom fervently believes in his father, Sarah is older, wiser and certain Nat has made a terrible mistake. One day, three strangers arrive at the farm on horseback, a trio of soldiers returned from the Boer War -- restless adventurer Maj. Henry (Pip Miller), moody and hard-drinking Carver (Neil Pigot), and Jimmy (Eamon Farren), who is innocent, good looking and clearly ill. Nat, who needs help on the farm, regards the arrival of the travelers as a gift from God, while Tom is fascinated by their tales of heroics and Sarah is clearly drawn to Jimmy as she helps nurse him back to health. But Nat discovers one of the reason his children are charmed by the soldiers is they have a cache of stolen gold, and the father believes the love of money is tainting the minds of his children. Lucky Country received its world premiere at the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival.