LibGuides: English: Lion

Useful Links

GradeSaver: Lion Study Guide
This useful guide provides an outline of the themes, imagery and symbols of Lion, and includes quizzes to test your knowledge.
The Guardian: Saroo Brierley, the inspiration for the film Lion: 'My mother saw my face after 25 years'
"When he was five, he fell asleep on a train and ended up 1,000 miles from home. His journey from Indian street-child to adopted Australian is now the subject of an Oscar-tipped film. Here he and his biological mother talk about their reunion."
Empire: Lion Review
"An astonishing true story that’s treated with an admirably light and artistic touch, rather than an overly dramatic heavy hand. Despite a weaker second half, it is ultimately deeply moving."
ABC: A Long Way Home: Ghostwriter Larry Buttrose on telling Saroo Brierley's story behind the film Lion
"From the moment Larry Buttrose heard the story about Saroo Brierley, he knew what a remarkable one it was.
Mr Brierley's story about survival and belonging was co-written with Dr Buttrose in the 2013 book A Long Way Home and this year brought to screens in the Hollywood film Lion starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman."
Psychology Today: The film Lion provides insights into adoptive relationships: What Saroo Brierley’s journey can tell us about adoption
This article from Psychology Today discusses the portrayals of adoptive & birth parents in both Lion and the memoir it is based on, A Long Way Home.

Film: Lion

A five-year-old Indian boy gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by a couple in Australia. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Production Year: 2016

Duration: 1:53:38

Post-Colonial Cinema

A Beginner’s Guide to… Post-Colonial Cinema
"Post-colonial theory sounds like something best left in a textbook, but in the context of a film industry that still limits characters of colour to sidekicks and stereotypes, it is worthy of broader discussion. Post-colonial films address the issues and ongoing effects of colonialism."
Shmoop: Postcolonial Theory Introduction
A great introduction to postcolonial theory that explains what it is and why it is relevant to film and literature studies.

Video: Saroo Brierley: "The Real-Life Subject of 'Lion'" | Talks at Google

To complement the release of Lion on Google Play, Saroo Brierley joins Director of Engineering, Google Maps Australia, Casey Whitelaw at the Google Sydney office for a 1-hour Fireside chat to explore Saroo’s journey, digital mapping and our understanding of home.

Duration: 51:20

Books available in the NCC

A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley
ISBN: 9780670077045
When Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to find his long-lost home town half a world away, he made global headlines. Saroo had become lost on a train in India at the age of five. Not knowing the name of his family or where he was from, he survived for weeks on the streets of Kolkata, before being taken into an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia. Despite being happy in his new family, Saroo always wondered about his origins. He spent hours staring at the map of India on his bedroom wall. When he was a young man the advent of Google Earth led him to pour over satellite images of the country for landmarks he recognised. And one day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for. Then he set off on a journey to find his mother.

Video: A Long Way Home - presented by Saroo Brierley at Real Big Things #3

Saroo Brierley tells the incredible story of finding his Indian mother, 25 years after being adopted by a Tasmanian family. He talks openly and honestly about his ordeal as a lost five year old, his adoption, and his long, arduous, and eventually successful search for his Indian family using the only tool he had available: Google Earth.

Duration: 33:20

English: Lion