Somewhere between the niggling baby tooth her body won’t release and the fever dreams of finding true love lives bright-eyed 16-year-old Milla (Sharp Objects’ Eliza Scanlen in an astonishing feature debut). Balancing the realities of a grim cancer prognosis and the fervent, flawed love of her pill-popping mother Anna (Essie Davis) and desperately lonely father Henry (Ben Mendelsohn), Milla wants little more than to forego routine and dive headlong into the unpredictable messiness of life. But when wiry 23-year-old addict Moses (Toby Wallace) literally tumbles into her world and Milla’s wildest dreams come true, she quickly finds that the sweetness of first love can have a bitter aftertaste. With Anna and Henry each inches away from their own abyss yet trying to hold it together for a child whose body is fighting her will to live, the pair must resort to drastic measures in this wry and fresh debut feature from director Shannon Murphy.

Winner: Marcello Mastroianni Award, Venice; Jury Prize, São Paulo

Director Shannon Murphy and actor Toby Wallace are expected to be in attendance on January 3 and 4.