Marguerite
Active Member
Hi everyone - I got some emails from some of the other mums whose kids were associated with this film. There was a really good newspaper article on Australia Day (last Saturday) and here is the link:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23091032-15803,00.html
To re-cap - "The Black Balloon" is a film about growing up with a profoundly autistic brother; a coming of age film. Contrary to how it sounds, it is NOT a re-make of "Gilbert Grape". All through the story, the younger 'normal' brother is rejecting any ties to his older autistic brother, he finds him embarrassing and wishes he didn't have a brother at all. The mother is played by Toni Collette. But when the mother becomes ill due to complications in her latest pregnancy, the boy has to step up to the plate and help. His brother is rehearsing for a school musical production of Noah's Ark and a lot of work is going into it. Meanwhile the boy is discovering love for the first time (a young model called Gemma Ward) and she teaches him to swim (filmed, it turned out, an a lovely lagoon very near to where we live).
The final scenes of the film revolve around this production of Noah's Ark in which our kids were in. They put out a call through the autism networks asking for autistic kids and their siblings willing to be in a "bit of a movie". We had no idea it was going to be big. They went to a great deal of trouble to rehearse the kids well and put in every possible character detail. difficult child 3 played Noah. easy child 2/difficult child 2 put her one metre high stilts on to play a giraffe and difficult child 1 played a psychotic rainbow lorikeet (in rehearsed fight scenes with the other lorikeet). The kids all had a ball, loved the whole thing and only right at the end did they realise that this was BIG.
The Australian release is March 6. It's also heading off one section of the Berlin Film Festival later this month.
And I'm going to drive you all NUTS with every update. We can't wait to see it.
They also filmed the kids for a "making of..." DVD feature, they interviewed my three along with the rest.
Somewhere on the web is the movie trailer. I think I posted it already, in an earlier thread.
The publicity machine is hotting up...
Marg
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23091032-15803,00.html
To re-cap - "The Black Balloon" is a film about growing up with a profoundly autistic brother; a coming of age film. Contrary to how it sounds, it is NOT a re-make of "Gilbert Grape". All through the story, the younger 'normal' brother is rejecting any ties to his older autistic brother, he finds him embarrassing and wishes he didn't have a brother at all. The mother is played by Toni Collette. But when the mother becomes ill due to complications in her latest pregnancy, the boy has to step up to the plate and help. His brother is rehearsing for a school musical production of Noah's Ark and a lot of work is going into it. Meanwhile the boy is discovering love for the first time (a young model called Gemma Ward) and she teaches him to swim (filmed, it turned out, an a lovely lagoon very near to where we live).
The final scenes of the film revolve around this production of Noah's Ark in which our kids were in. They put out a call through the autism networks asking for autistic kids and their siblings willing to be in a "bit of a movie". We had no idea it was going to be big. They went to a great deal of trouble to rehearse the kids well and put in every possible character detail. difficult child 3 played Noah. easy child 2/difficult child 2 put her one metre high stilts on to play a giraffe and difficult child 1 played a psychotic rainbow lorikeet (in rehearsed fight scenes with the other lorikeet). The kids all had a ball, loved the whole thing and only right at the end did they realise that this was BIG.
The Australian release is March 6. It's also heading off one section of the Berlin Film Festival later this month.
And I'm going to drive you all NUTS with every update. We can't wait to see it.
They also filmed the kids for a "making of..." DVD feature, they interviewed my three along with the rest.
Somewhere on the web is the movie trailer. I think I posted it already, in an earlier thread.
The publicity machine is hotting up...
Marg