Max Nappo and Sarah Nicolazzo in Westgate.

A new trailer has dropped for Adrian Ortega’s Westgate – a poetic exploration of family, culture, and the weight of past traumas.

It’s 1999. Netta (Sarah Nicolazzo) is drowning—a sick child, Julian (Max Nappo), a business bankrupting her before it has even begun, and a landlord pounding at the door. When Julian’s father cancels their long-promised weekend together, everything begins to unravel. Determined not to let her son down, she clings to the one thing she can still control—getting Julian to his final year footy presentation.

But the world doesn’t care about Netta’s promises. A disapproving mother, a salon that won’t open, and a questionable deal on the other side of town. With no other way to make it back in time for the presentation, Julian begs Netta to take the West Gate Bridge—a bridge weighted with the ghosts of her dead father—unable to, Netta refuses.

But grief unspoken, is grief misunderstood. And her son, once her ally, turns against her.

As her life unravels, so does her grip. A fight with her ex turns physical. Julian runs away. When she finds him, collapsed and barely conscious, she is forced to face everything she has spent her whole life outrunning—the loss of her father and her determination to never rely on anybody again.

Rough-edged and unfiltered, Westgate is a portrait of a woman who refuses to be softened, a child who sees too much, and a city that has never made space for them.

Westgate will screen at the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival. Details here. A general release date is TBA. 

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