In 1942, many thousands of Australian men have deserted their farms to join the war in Europe, leaving behind women, cattle and crops on properties that will fail without a workforce. The Australian Government needs food and textiles to keep the country running – and to send to troops overseas... and so they are forced to create the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA), using propaganda to form a formidable emergency workforce, made up of mostly young, healthy, single women, to send out to farms across the nation.

A young woman, Med, whose sexual identity is not acceptable in the era – and whose family orchard is destined to be left to her brothers – tries to escape her circumstances by joining the initiative.

Merredin, Western Australia 1942.

Med is sent to a remote sheep station, where the farmer’s wife, Lil, has been left in grief and solitude after learning her husband is missing in action. In the long days and weeks working alone on the land, Med and Lil form a deep connection and an undeniable attraction begins to unfold. Though Med, full of self-loathing and certain of rejection, attempts to shut it down. Surprisingly, it’s Lil, who has been exposed to unorthodox views on life by her flapper aunt, who is more open and less judgemental of their growing feelings for each other. They are falling in love.

With their feelings as yet unspoken – the budding relationship between Med and Lil is challenged when workers are brought from the nearby Prisoner of War camp to labour during the shearing season. The introduction of men into their bubble creates conflict for Med, who is also forced up against traditional gender roles, as she tries to work in the shearing shed. Enzo, a charming Italian prisoner of war, seems an obvious asset to Lil’s life on the farm – and Med begins to withdraw, expecting to be rejected in favour of the man. Lil has no such conventional ideas and, after a dramatic confrontation, their love is finally consummated.

Swearing to build a life together, despite nuances of community disapproval, Med begins to plant a cherry orchard for their future. Just as it appears they have a chance at happiness, Med learns from an intercepted letter that Lil’s husband is alive and returning from the
war. Knowing she cannot give Lil children and the family she craves – and believing in Lil’s husband’s right to return home to his wife – Med leaves the station in an act of self-sacrifice.

Ten years later, as cherry blossoms blow on the breeze, the two women’s eyes meet across the road at an Anzac Day reunion of the Australian Women's Land Army troop... No words are spoken, but the heart-break of “a love that got away” is tangible. This story is told in the vein of classic epic tragic romances, such as Brokeback Mountain, Bridges of Maddison County, Atonement and An Affair To Remember – seen through the prism of female same- sex love – and turning the gaze onto women’s experience and contribution within a wartime film genre that has almost exclusively been seen through a male lens and /or through heterosexual romance, especially in Australian cinema.