Anthony LaPaglia (Image Credit, Brisbane Times)

The jury of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting has awarded its annual prize to Matthew Saville’s A MONTH OF SUNDAYS, released April 28, 2016.

This beautiful, gentle Australian film is about a lonely man, Frank, trying to find a fresh purpose in life. One day, he receives a phone call from an elderly widow, Sarah, who carries on a conversation with him as if she is his mother. Sarah’s wrong number leads to a friendship that gives meaning and purpose to Frank’s life in unexpected ways.

The film is a tender, dramatic character study of a man who reaches out to form an attachment to a woman, who becomes the means for his discovering the humanity he thought he had lost.

Anthony LaPaglia gives an outstanding portrayal of a person in midlife crisis, and Julia Blake is superb as his understanding, would-be mother. The movie covers a range of themes in a very sensitive way. It exposes us movingly, dramatically, and warmly to family affection and attachment, ageing, separation, and grief. It also confronts us with telling gestures of humanity and the need to find ways of coping with sickness and death.

This is an extraordinarily rich film, beautifully acted, directed and scripted, that carries powerful messages of Christian, human kindness, and hope.

The jury also commended Simon Stone’s THE DAUGHTER, and Mel Gibson’s HACKSAW RIDGE.

Fr Richard Leonard SJ, the Director of the Australian Catholic Film Office is available for interviews or comment on 0409 120 928.