The Darwin Film Society is thrilled to announce the 2026 Deckchair Cinema season will kick off on Wednesday 8 April with the NT Premiere of WOLFRAM, with special guests director/DOP Warwick Thornton and writer Stephen McGregor, in only its second screening in Australia.
The highly anticipated opening of the 32nd Deckchair Cinema season in Darwin heralds the beginning of the dry season, and launches over 200 consecutive nights of compelling, entertaining films, events and special guests under the tropical stars.
WOLFRAM, a sequel to Thornton’s Sweet Country, was selected to screen in official competition at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival in February, following its world premiere at Adelaide Film Festival.
The Screen Territory backed production was shot on the same locations near Alice Springs where the sets for the fictional town of Henry from Sweet Country still stand. Set some four years after the events of Sweet Country, the film pulls another thread of David Tranter’s Alyawarra family history, extending and deepening the story world by taking the perspective of the women and children of the family, anchored by matriarch Pansy, played by the exceptional Deborah Mailman (The New Boy, Total Control, Boy Swallows Universe).
SPECIAL GUEST WARWICK THORNTON is a Kaytetye man, and considered one of Australia’s most important living directors, and widely acclaimed for this cinematography.
SPECIAL GUEST, WRITER STEPHEN MCGREGOR’s screenplay for Sweet Country won the 2018 AWGIE and AACTA awards for Best Original Screenplay, and he has been part of the AACTA and Logie winning Mystery Road franchise across all four seasons, in addition to being an acclaimed director.
WOLFRAM is set on the colonial frontier, 1930s Australia. When two swaggering outlaws roll into town to strike it rich in the mines, they unleash a wave of cruelty that shatters the community’s fragile balance and leads three irrepressible kids to break free from their white maters – as they set off across the sweet country of Central Australia in search of a safe home.
Deckchair Cinema Manager James Parker “WOLFRAM is the perfect film to open the Deckchair Cinema season this year. We are thrilled to have an acclaimed NT story take centre stage, with the incredible Warwick Thornton and Stephen McGregor in the house to watch the film under Territory stars.”
Territory FM 
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