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Powder
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Victor Salva
Produced by	Roger Birnbaum, Daniel Grodnik
Written by	Victor Salva
Starring	Sean Patrick Flanery, Jeff Goldblum, Mary Steenburgen, Lance Henriksen, Bradford Tatum
Distributed by	Caravan Pictures, Hollywood Pictures
Release date(s)	October 27, 1995
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Gross revenue	$30,862,156
IMDb profile

Powder is a 1995 film directed by Victor Salva, about an albino boy, nicknamed "Powder", with paranormal powers over electricity. It stars Sean Patrick Flanery in the title role, with Jeff Goldblum, Mary Steenburgen, Bradford Tatum, and Lance Henriksen in supporting roles. The film questions the limits of the human mind and body while also displaying their capacity for cruelty, and the hope that one day humanity will advance beyond technology.

Powder's real name is Jeremey Reed. His mother gets struck by a lightning bolt while pregnant with him. She dies shortly after, but Powder survives. Born an albino (a medical condition in which there is no pigmination, or color in the skin), his father disowns him and leaves him in the hospital. Because of the lightning strike, Powder has unusally high electronic waves in his body. As a result, electrical objects badly act up when near him or when he becomes emotional, and hair is unable to grow on his body. Powder grows up with his grandparents. When Powder's grandfather dies after a heart attack, child care representatives take Powder to an juvenile facility, where he quickly finds himself thrown into many painful circumstances.

He is taken to high school and encounters physics teacher Donald Ripley (Goldblum) who finds out that Powder has supernatural powers as well as the highest IQ in the history of mankind. While his abilities mark him as special, they also make him an outcast. Powder meets Lindsey Kelloway, a romantic interest, but their relationship is broken by Kelloway's father.

Powder goes back to the juvenile facility and packs away his belongings, planning to run away to his deceased grandparents' farm. He decides to join John Box, a troubled young man at the orphanage who bullies him. Box and the other males humiliate Powder, only for Box to be knocked unconscious by a mysterious electric attack caused by lightning's strange attraction to Powder. Powder uses his supernatural abilities to revive John. Powder is taken to the farm, where he is rejoined by Jesse the psychiatrist, along with Donald Ripley and the Sheriff, who persuade Powder to come with them. However, Powder symbolically refuses to join the rest of society, instead letting nature take him: he runs into a stormy field where lightning strikes him, and he disappears in a blinding flash of multi-colored light.

Since its release it has grossed approximately $31 million worldwide.

Shortly after the film's release, a media frenzy erupted when it was revealed that director Salva had been convicted of molesting a then 12-year-old boy named Nathan Forrest Winters who had acted in his earlier film Clownhouse, with some people (including Salva's victim) calling for a boycott. Nonetheless, the film proved successful, and was the second highest grossing film in America for two weeks.

The film was remade by Bollywood under the title of Alag.

• Powder at the Internet Movie Database