Wikipedia
Blackrock is a 1997 Australian drama thriller film directed by Steven Vidler and written by Nick Enright. Marking Vidler's directorial debut, the film was adapted from the play of the same name, also written by Enright, which was inspired by the murder of Leigh Leigh. The film stars Laurence Breuls, Simon Lyndon and Linda Cropper, and also features the first credited film performance of Heath Ledger. The film follows Jared (Breuls), a young surfer who witnesses his friends raping a girl. When she is found murdered the next day, Jared is torn between revealing what he saw and protecting his friends.
Leigh's family opposed the fictionalisation of her murder, though protests against the film were abandoned after it received financial backing from the New South Wales Film and Television Office. Blackrock was filmed over a period of two weeks at locations including Stockton, where Leigh was murdered, a decision that was opposed by local residents who said that memories of the murder were still fresh. While the film was never marketed as being based on a true story, numerous comparisons between the murder and the film were made, and many viewers believed it to be a factual account of the murder.
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and was also shown at the Boston Film Festival, though it never found an American distributor. It was nominated for five AACTA Awards, including Best Film, and won the Feature Film – Adaptation award as well as the Major Award at the 1997 AWGIE Awards. It received generally positive reviews in Australia, where it grossed $1.1 million at the box office. Outside Australia, where audiences were less familiar with Leigh's murder, it received mixed reviews.
BlackRock, Inc. is an American global investment management corporation based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is by far the world's largest asset manager with $4.6 trillion in assets under management.
Blackrock is a play by Australian playwright Nick Enright that was first performed in 1995. It was adapted from a 1992 play by Enright, entitled A Property of the Clan, which was inspired by the murder of Leigh Leigh in Stockton, Australia in 1989. The plays were both well received critically, though they did attract criticism from both Leigh's family and the media due to the fictionalisation of an actual murder. Despite repeated statements from Enright that the plays were a work of fiction, they have both often been considered by viewers to be a factual account. A Property of the Clan was shortlisted for a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 1993, and Blackrock won the AWGIE Award for Best Play in 1996. Blackrock was developed into a feature film of the same name in 1997.