Leading Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton has signed on to direct First Warrior, an epic feature about Australian Aboriginal resistance fighter Pemulwuy. Aussie stars Sam Worthington (Avatar, Hacksaw Ridge) and Jason Clarke (Oppenheimer, Zero Dark Thirty) have boarded the project in lead parts, while a casting search is said to be underway for the lead role of Pemulwuy.
A Bidjigal man of the Sydney tribes, Pemulwuy led a 12-year resistance against British settlers moving into his people’s traditional lands as Australia was colonized in the late 1700s.
One of Australia’s most admired directors, Thornton broke through in 2009 when his directorial debut, Samson & Delilah won the Cannes Film Festival’s Camera d’Or prize. His 2017 film Sweet Country took home Venice’s Special Jury Prize and his most recent work, The New Boy, starring Cate Blanchett, premiered at Cannes last year.
First Warrior is supported by the Bidjigal, Dharawal and Dharug Elders and is led by an all-Indigenous core creative team including Thornton, writer Jon Bell (The Moogai, Cleverman) and writer-producer Andrew Dillon (Le Champion, Outliers). Dillion is a direct descendant of both the Dharug and Gomeroi people and will produce First Warrior under his That’s-A-Wrap Productions banner, an Indigenous First Nations-owned and operated production company.
The project is scripted by an all-star Aussie screenwriting team, including BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Salt) and Shana Levine (The Portable Door, Charlie & Boots).
“I am so honored to be a part of this amazing film. It’s an important story with an awesome script and legendary actors,” said Thornton in a statement. Dillon added: “It has been a lifelong goal of mine to have our Indigenous warriors celebrated on the silver screen. I can’t wait for audiences to not only experience Warwick’s vision for this story, but to leave the cinema with a newfound appreciation of Australia’s shared history.”
