Satellite Boy 2012

Ten-year-old Pete Cameron Wallaby lives at a run-down drive-in theatre with his grandfather Jagamarra David Gulpilil, whom he affectionately calls “Jubbi.” The grandfather continually passes down the wisdom of the old ways, shaping Pete’s view of the world in a place where time seems to have slowed. Pete dreams of turning the property into a small restaurant, a goal that sits alongside his hope that his absent mother, Lynelle Rohanna Angus, will return to help. Jubbi remains skeptical about her return to the desolate Kimberley, but Pete keeps hoping. The Kimberley landscape, with its vast horizons and quiet danger, frames their daily life as a mix of routine and risk.

Then a local mining company arrives, laying claim to the land and planning to build a storage facility that would raze everything on the site. Kalmain Joseph Pedley is introduced as a budding arsonist, his hobby of setting abandoned vans aflame landing him in trouble with the law. Yet he remains a loyal, if wayward, companion for Pete as the story unfolds. Pete asks Kalmain to accompany him on a weekend bicycle trip up to the city to appeal to the company officials, hoping to sway their plans.

Kalmain agrees, though he is now on the run from the police, adding a tension-filled edge to the journey. What begins as a simple ride becomes a true walkabout as the boys get lost, facing harsh terrain and uncertain directions. Throughout the ordeal, Pete draws on Jubbi’s steady wisdom to survive, aiming to reach the city and, ultimately, to reconnect with his mother. Lynelle’s plan to take him to Perth so that she can pursue a new life as a beautician provides a hopeful, if challenging, endpoint for Pete’s odyssey.