Lion

From the production team that brought us The King's Speech comes Lion: the incredible true story of Saroo Brierley and his 25-year odyssey.

Precocious five-year-old Saroo Khan is always up for an adventure. Eager to help his older brother Guddu with any odd job that will provide their family with much-needed money, Saroo follows Guddu everywhere he goes. One night the two boys are separated on a train platform in their native Madhya Pradesh, and Saroo winds up nearly a thousand miles away in Calcutta.

Homeless in a strange city where he doesn't speak the language, Saroo gets by on his street smarts until he is taken in by a government orphanage. When an Australian couple adopts him, he is taken to live with them in Hobart, Tasmania. It's not until Saroo leaves that island as a young Australian man that he begins to wonder what became of his first home and the family he so adored. Ingeniously using satellite images from Google Earth, he finds a lead to follow up on. But the search for Saroo's past threatens to overwhelm his present, and he finds himself further adrift than he ever imagined possible.

Adapting Brierley's own book, A Long Way Home, screenwriter Luke Davies and first-time director Garth Davis infuse the story with quiet heartbreak. Newcomer Sunny Pawar lights up the screen as the young boy, and Dev Patel delivers a deeply affecting performance as the adult Saroo. Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Rooney Mara (also at the Festival in Una and The Secret Scripture) and Tannishtha Chatterjee round out Lion's all-star international cast, while Greig Fraser's arresting photography conveys the overwhelming chaos and beauty of Saroo's two worlds. This remarkable journey shows us how home transcends borders and family transcends blood.

JANE SCHOETTLE