Looking for Grace

Award-winning Australian filmmaker Sue Brooks (Japanese Story) writes and directs this tale about a runaway teen, her worried parents, and the detective hired to help. The narrative is broken into sequentially overlapping parts, each changing the perspective of the story between the main characters.

"Grace (Odessa Young) is a small-town teenager. When we first meet her, she's on a long bus trip with her best friend Sappho (Kenya Pearson) through the vast, dry Australian landscape. We don't know where they're going, but we know this trip is an escape. When an older boy (Harry Richardson) gets on the bus, both girls are intrigued, but Grace is the bolder one. At an overnight motel stop, she makes a choice that changes her friendship with Sapph.

"Shift perspective to Bruce (Myles Pollard), a long-distance truck driver we saw in passing earlier. Then to Tom (Terry Norris), a cop. Then Grace's mother, Denise (Radha Mitchell), then her father, Dan (Richard Roxburgh). As we move from one character to another, the complete picture begins to come into focus: Grace has run away from home. Her parents are frantic. Money is missing. Her father holds a secret. And the police are investigating, though not terribly well." (Toronto International Film Festival)