broken hill
synopsis
Tommy McAlpine (18) was born and raised on a rocky, drought-ridden sheep station in the middle of the Australian Outback. To George McAlpine (50's), Tommy's rough shod third generation cockie father, Tommy's only choice for a future must be keeping on the family station and seeking out a living on the dry Outback land.
But Tommy has a gift for music and aspires to attend The Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He works at the station and even plays Australian Rules Football to appease his father but in his heart wants to be a great musician. But the town is small and the world is about sheep and footy. No one can carry a tune or would if they could...
But when Tommy's unrequited crush on a high school classmate named Kat Rogers (17) gets him into hot water with the local police, Tommy sees a new opportunity. He chooses to do community service at the nearby gaol in order to use the prisoners to make his compositions come to life.
The stakes for Tommy are raised when his music teacher and mentor (an Aboriginal musical genius named Pindari) lands him an audition for an elite music conservatorium in Sydney. Tommy, afraid that he wouldn't get approval from the prison, manipulates events to bring his choir to a prison band competition where a talent scout from the conservatorium can see the performance.
During a gaol performance in Adelaide, South Australia, Tommy unwittingly helps his star prison musician escape from the detention centre, ruining his chances at a conservatorium scholarship.
Despite the odds, Kat helps Tommy find a way to reconcile with his father, make things up to the prison warden, and find a way to perform his music in Sydney.
BROKEN HILL is BILLY ELLIOT meets AUGUST RUSH set in the Outback. It is the story of an artist who learns to reach for the stars.
