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Levi Miller comes of age in Australian swimming drama ‘Streamline’

Levi Miller.

After playing kids in Red Dog: True Blue, A Wrinkle in Time, Jasper Jones and Pan, Levi Miller is set to take on his most mature role in writer-director Tyson Johnston’s debut feature Streamline.

Miller will play a 15-year-old swimming prodigy who self-destructs after his long absent father is released from jail.

Bronte Pictures’ Blake Northfield and Nathan Walker will produce the drama which is intended to go into production in Queensland in late 2019.

The movie is a deeply personal project for the LA-based filmmaker, who grew up as a competitive swimmer and is drawing on memories from those times.

“It’s a movie about my own experiences growing up inside of a broken family without a father around,” he tells IF.

“It’s about the pains my mum and my brothers and I all lived with at certain stages in our lives and the silly things we all did to numb those pains. It’s a story about broken people closing their wounds, about self-sabotage, healing and redemption. It’s very raw and deeply human. I think a lot of people are going to connect with it.”

Northfield said: “Levi is already a veteran of this industry at such a young age and this role will transition him into the next stage of his career. Tyson is an incredible talent whom we are proud to partner with, bringing a strong family story based around a popular sport.”

Miller was 12 when he landed the lead role in Pan, Joe Wright’s 2015 adaptation of the classic J.M. Barrie novel alongside Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund and Rooney Mara.

His latest US film is the Lionsgate thriller American Exit, directed by Tim McCann and Ingo Vollkammer.

Dane Cook plays a desperate father on the run with his son (Miller) after he steals a million-dollar painting. The cast includes Udo Kier, Claire van der Boom and John Savage.

Bronte Pictures produced Storm Ashwood’s thrillers The School and Escape and Evasion and co-produced with Mind the Gap the feature doc/TV series Around the World.

Also on its slate is PJ Hogan’s The Calligrapher, a comedy adapted from the debut novel by British writer Edward Docx, a co-production with Cecilia Cordeiro of UK-based MGR Films.