Wee King of Nowhere takes us on a journey through the inner city with a young runaway. We see him scavenging for food and sleeping in a cardboard box, where he is set upon by a gang of other boys. We share his flashbacks of an abusive upbringing by a loveless, alcoholic mother, who does nothing to protect her son or herself from the violent boyfriend she has introduced to their home.
Given this bleak material, you might expect Wee King of Nowhere to amount to twenty minutes of sheer misery. Surprisingly, though, this short film is filled with moments of wonder and delight, because the boy has another life, that of the imagination. Here, he is a king with a sword and a beautiful fairy to watch over him. Admittedly, this same imagination transmutes his experience of domestic violence into a terrifying, fiery dragon, but it also offers him a refuge and his only source of hope and joy, until he encounters a saviour in the form of a mysterious vagabond poet.
Wee King of Nowhere is a realistic exposé of the kind of experiences children forced onto the streets by neglect and abuse confront every day. But it also reveals how a creative, resourceful boy can escape from the most terrible start in life to find a way in the world.
Wee King of Nowhere slips effortlessly between stark realism and a realm of magic and fantasy, where the boy, played by Matthew Fenton, draws us into his story with an appealing mix of vulnerability and charm.
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