AFL feature film Blinder kicks off its 10-week shoot today in Torquay, Victoria, before moving to Boston, Massachusetts.
The upcoming film has also cast Josh Helman (Animal Kingdom, The Pacific), who will appear alongside Oliver Ackland (The Slap, Cloudstreet), Rose McIver (The Lovely Bones), Steve Bisley (Red Hill), Anna Hutchison (Wild Boys), Zoe Carides (Death In Brunswick), Bob Morley (Road Train) and Angus Sampson (Insidious).
Helman will star as James Mortimer, a great centre half-forward for the Torquay Tigers, in the $5 million Blinder, which is being marketed as a sports drama brimming with romance and sports action in the vein of Friday Night Lights and Bend It Like Beckham.
The story centres on 18-year-old Tom (Ackland) from Torquay who, having fled Australia on the back of a football scandal that ended his career before it started, returns home to clear his name and reignite an old flame. While celebrating the life of his recently-departed coach, he begins to see the past with new eyes – but revelations regarding the shameful aftermath of his team’s grand final once again threaten to turn Tom’s life upside down.
Writer/director Richard Gray (Summer Coda, Mine Games) is directing the screenplay, which he co-wrote with Scott Didier and Michele Gray.
Josh Helman in The Pacific.