Simon Trewin

During the long years of World War II, Australia’s small farming communities paid a terrible price. In the rural towns of New South Wales, one family each week discovered that their son or husband or brother or father would not be coming home. In the throws of such grief, one seldom considers the man who delivers the news.

The Telegram Man takes us into the world of Bill Williams, the man who must deliver the worst kind of news and John Lewis the man who is destined to hear it. John Boyne’s poetic short story American Farm ‘44 has been transported to the Australian outback allowing us to explore, through the micro-cosmos of Bill and John, how World War II forever changed the face of Australian culture.

The Telegram Man is a 15-minute short film set in 1942 country town NSW. The screenplay has been developed jointly by the film’s director/producer James F. Khehtie and writer Victoria Wharfe McIntyre based on a short story by John Boyne, the award-winning author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.  Please watch the evocative trailer here