George Ryga's Hungry Hills

In 1954 after two years in a home for boys, Snit Mandolin (Keir Gilchrist), 15, returns home to his seemingly unhinged and reclusive aunt Matilda (Gabrielle Rose). Defeated by a community that still shuns him, confronted by the impossibility of surviving on his aunt's farm, Snit falls in with Johnny Swift (Alexander De Jordy), 16, another outcast.

Johnny makes moonshine and sells it through a local bootlegger. The boys work together and become fast friends. And Snit finds first love with a free-spirited local girl, Robin, 16 (Alexia Fast).

Their adventure is interrupted by the enigmatic and unpredictable Roy Kane (John Pyper-Ferguson), the district's private cop, who took Snit away two years ago and will now use the boys to get to the bootlegger.

Dogged by Kane, betrayed by a bootlegger and plagued by the ghosts of the past, the boys' partnership ends - their friendship broken.

Alone once more in the community that rejected him, Snit comes to a violent crossroads.