For people who have crossed something to get here.
For people who have crossed something to get here.
A psychological coming-of-age drama about memory, silence, and what it really means to survive something you were never meant to carry.
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Amateur athlete Tino uses running to escape old wounds, until a childhood friend, fresh out of prison, forces him to confront his past.
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Inspired by a true story. An Ethiopian Prince taken to Victorian England in 1868, after his father took his own life with the pistol Queen Victoria gave him.
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A psychological coming-of-age drama that follows Michael, a young man navigating love, masculinity, and identity while carrying a deeply buried past.
On the night of a party, an intimate moment triggers fragments of a suppressed childhood trauma, sending Michael into a spiral where past and present begin to blur. Through confrontation, vulnerability, and the courage to speak, he is forced to face the truth he has avoided for years.
The film explores memory, silence, and healing, asking what it really means to survive something you were never meant to carry.
Tormented about his past by ongoing nightmares, amateur athlete Tino uses running as a way to escape old wounds. His attempts are foiled when a childhood friend, Frederick, fresh out of prison, reconnects with him and, seeking to redeem himself, presents Tino with a plan and a mysterious object wrapped in a paper bag.
Shot in the Flemington and North Melbourne Estates, the film explores self-determination, discrimination, and resilience within the African Australian community.
In 1868, Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, facing defeat at the hands of the British army, took his own life with the pistol Queen Victoria had given him as a diplomatic gift. He left behind one request: that his seven-year-old son, Prince Alemayehu, be cared for.
The British kept their word in their own way. Alemayehu was taken to England, dressed in Victorian clothes, educated at Rugby, presented to the Queen, and displayed to a curious empire. He never went home. He died at eighteen. He is buried at Windsor Castle.
Stranger Prince follows Alemayehu from the mountains of Maqdala to the drawing rooms of Victorian England, asking what it costs to survive a world that calls itself your benefactor.
"This is a story about what happens when the world decides to love you and calls that love possession. It is the oldest story. It is still happening."
Ras-Samuel, Writer / Director
Pan African FF · St Kilda FF · Durban IFF · BronzeLens · Flickerfest (Best Cinematography)
An Ethiopian Prince taken to Victorian England in 1868. Inspired by a true story.
View Project ↓40 Pictures is an independent production company making films and series that cross boundaries of culture, identity, and form.
The name carries the weight of 40, across traditions and continents, the number of transformation, endurance, and arrival. The number of days it takes to become something else.
We are specific, prestige, enduring, and independent. We make work for audiences who recognise the truth in a story because they have carried one of their own.
We are open to co-productions, partnerships, and conversations with filmmakers, financiers, and distributors who share our commitment to prestige independent cinema.
