It's an unlikely love story set to reveal a life most Australians don't realise exists.

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Samson and Delilah, Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton's latest offering, follows a pair of teenagers who have only each other.

Through the isolation and dysfunction plaguing their remote community life, Samson and Delilah's unusual relationship is their only source of solace.

"I grew up in Alice Springs on the streets and, you know, the town has a lot of issues that it doesn't talk about and it generally blames our children for just about everything...these kids are human beings and they're beautiful human beings and I just wanted to show that part of them", Thornton told Living Black.

Living Black meets the makers of this film ahead of its national release on May 7.

Following on from the success of his short films 'Nana' and 'Green Bush', acclaimed Indigenous filmmaker and director Warwick Thornton's first-ever feature film was screened to an enthusiastic audience last week in Alice Springs. Video journalist Kris Flanders brings us this story.

TRANSCRIPT

WARWICK THORNTON, WRITER/DIRECTOR: 'Samson & Delilah' is a teenage love story set in an Aboriginal community in Central Australia. These two kids go on a journey through the outback to Alice Springs and get themselves in a bit of trouble and sort of have to find their way home and sort of sort out themselves.

VOICEOVER: Warwick Thornton's latest film took him six years to bring to the big screen. It's a film close to his heart.

WARWICK THORNTON: I grew up in Alice Springs on the streets and you know, the town has a lot of issues that it doesn't talk about and it generally blames our children for just about everything and the sad thing is that these kids are human beings and they're beautiful human beings and I just wanted to show that part of them.

VOICEOVER: Rarely are films made where the two main characters have little dialogue together. But Thornton wanted to reflect what it was like to be a teenager, not knowing how to express those feelings.

WARWICK THORNTON: That's their dynamic. They don't talk to each other, but they love each other and they use that love to survive, to hang onto their existence and to help get them out of trouble and to back each other up.

VOICEOVER: The title characters are played by first-time actors from the communities around Alice Springs. For the role of Samson, Warwick was looking for a young man who was strong and a little bit cheeky. Rowan McNamara filled that role.

ROWAN MCNAMARA, 'SAMSON': It was easy acting as Samson in the movie. It was fun - making so much fun and friends. Yeah, I want to do more acting.

MARISSA GIBSON, 'DELILAH' What Delilah and I have in common are we're strong people, we both speak language, and she's kind and you know, she has a warm heart and thinks of others. Yeah, she's a good person.

VOICEOVER: It's hard to believe that the movie was made on a shoestring budget and only a small crew.

KATHY SHELPER, PRODUCER: Just because we were making a low-budget film didn't mean that we wanted to make it look low-budget, so we put a lot of the money into shooting on 35, which was the easiest thing for Warwick to do technically, in the end, so that the end product looked really brilliant.

VOICEOVER: The story of 'Samson & Delilah' struck a chord with locals at the Alice Springs screening.

MAN: It's a bit of a revelation, in a way - like, it gives you an insight into how some people are living in our town.

WOMAN: Very thought-provoking and it’s really good to see something locally made with such fantastic actors and about the issues.

VOICEOVER: 'Samson & Delilah' will open around the country on 7 May. And 'Samson and Delilah' is about to be launched on the international stage, having been officially selected to screen at the Cannes International Film Festival in May.

Source: Living Black, SBS