The Boy Who Was Abandoned (2016)

The Boy Who Was Abandoned tells the story of a child who is so ill-behaved his family cannot tolerate him. They blind him by sealing his eyes with pitch and leave him tied to a birch tree in the forest.

The boy manages to free himself, and though his eyes are still sealed shut, he learns all about the forest with the help of the animals who live there. They teach him to hunt and fish, and as he learns to provide for himself the pitch falls from his eyes and he can see.

He returns to the village and finds that the Creator has punished the community for abandoning him. With food scarce, the people have left the village, leaving behind a woman they thought was too old and useless to help them find food.

The boy and the old woman provide food for each other and collect enough to feed the whole community. When the people return to the village they discover that the boy and the woman, whom they abandoned, turn out to be their saviours.

“It’s a parable about how you can’t throw people away just because you find them inconvenient,” Loring says. “You will need them.”