FAQ

Young Thomas Mollison (Rhys Wakefield) is placed in charge of his older, autistic brother Charlie () when his pregnant mother is required to take it easy.

The Black Balloon is based on a screenplay by Australian screenwriters Elissa Down (who also directed the movie) and Jimmy Jack.

Near the start of the movie, a bunch of brightly-colored balloons can be seen. In their midst is one black balloon, the odd balloon, different from all the others, just as Charlie and his family are different from the other families around them.

Holsworthy, a suburb of Sydney. Filming was also carried out in the Holsworthy/Sydney area.

SCAB stands for School Clean-up And Beautification duty, typically assigned to students as punishment for some wrongdoing. The acronym was invented well after the term was already in wide usage. It was originally labeled Scab duty simply because it involved picking up garbage. In the 1980s (when this movie was set by the way), anyone who was caught rummaging around in the garbage for cans or bottles (to recycle), or food (to eat) was labeled a scab. In fact it was even used as a verb, as in "The school bully threw my bag in the garbage, and I had to scab it out again". So that's where the term comes from, purely due to the association with garbage.