Opal Dream is a genuine family film, set in today’s Australia and based on Ben Rice’s novella Pobby and Dingan. The film explains how the unshakeable faith of a child has great consequences for a community that does not yet want to surrender itself to the richness of the imagination. Kellyane, the lonely daughter of miner Rex and his wife Annie, gets a mysterious disease. When her two invisible friends, Pobby and Dingan, suddenly fail to turn up any more, this illness slowly makes her disappear. The parents and brother are at first fairly impatient with the vivid imagination of their little daughter and sister, but then are forced to take action. In an attempt to meet her halfway, her father goes looking for the two friends in a mine. He is arrested on suspicion of theft. It is then up to brother Ashmol to overcome his own scepticism so he can find Pobby and Dingan. It’s not easy to trace the two missing creatures; you have to be a specific person to do that. Ashmol wants to save his little sister and the reputation of his father, and perseveres. Despite the resistance of the inhabitants of the small town, the quest for Kellyane’s little friends turns into a humourous and emotional rite of passage for everyone. It is abundantly clear: you don’t have to see to be able to believe. (EH)
