Country of Origin

Australia

Set in an alternative reality in the year of 2025, Koen Olden, a 16-year-old aboriginal teenager, grew up in a rural community in a small Queensland town. Koen has no father. He lives with his unstable mother, a drug addict. Koen does have an elder brother, Jake, who left home three years, and never came back.  

 

Life turns upside down when Koen is arrested for robbing a local shop with a fake gun, while just for some food. He is sent to the city watch house where Koen been put into complete isolation for separate him with the reoffenders. Koen’s mom couldn’t afford the bail. We see a teenage siting in the cold cell, all by himself. A teenage who is taking responsibility for his family at the age that he is the one that should be taken care of.

 

Koen thought some biscuits is nothing and he can get out soon. However, arm robbery is a crime considered a serious crime. Koen is sentenced to a maximum-security prison for at least 18 months, incarcerated with adult criminals. Having pressed the panic button, the nightmare of Koen is just start and Koen’s arrival catches many attention…

 

Koen, seventeen explores the cost of survival as the audience witness a troubled teenage in a desperate satiation, being forced to sacrifice his morality, being humiliated, being tortured, being pressed unfair resentment, and eventually being trapped even deeper in this nightmare.

 

Based on the shocking and infamous real event of the abuse of youth in Don Dale detention centre, Koen, seventeen is currently in development and set to start production in far north Queensland next autumn.

 

More to come.