Indigenous film 'Samson and Delilah' to get French debut

CANNES, France (AFP) — Australian indigenous director Warwick Thornton's gritty love story about two petrol-sniffing Aboriginal teenagers shows in France this month, its first major foreign release after stunning festival audiences worldwide.

"Samson and Delilah", Thornton's debut feature, released at home and in New Zealand early this year before showing at Cannes in May, where it was awarded the Camera d'Or as best first film by arguably the world's foremost film festival.

The Cannes jury described the movie shot in a derelict Aboriginal community in northern Australia as "the best love film we've seen for many a year."

Shown since at festivals from London to New York, the stark and almost silent movie has grossed millions at home and is to be Australia's entry in the race for the best Foreign Oscar.

It follows the slow shy courtship between a pair of teenagers living in miserable conditions in tin shacks in a hungry isolated community, and the tragedy that sends them fleeing to the city of Alice Springs where they end up living rough in petrol-sniffing oblivion.

"It was for my people and it has become such an incredible journey," Thornton, a big Continue reading the remaining 52% ...