Film gets hometown premiere

THE cuts are so fresh they are almost bleeding but, its creator says, the film Amiri & Aroha will be ready in time for its hometown debut in Gisborne on Sunday.
Preparing the film for its premiere has been a lot of work but writer/director David Whittet is getting used to the pressure.
He only finished shooting it in Gisborne in December and its first edits had to be ready for entry into international film festivals early in the New Year.
Even before that he had dealt with a myriad of filmmaking challenges, from a crushingly restrictive budget to equipment breakdown, a fire in the lighting and the defection of a central character.
But it’s all been worth it, says Whittet, who is travelling to Gisborne from his new home in the South Island township of Kurow for Sunday’s premiere.
With the film already having won Awards of Merit in both the international Best Shorts and the Accolade competitions, he is inspired to take his concept further and, during the two weeks he will spend back in Gisborne, hopes to do most of the shooting for a follow-on film, Amiri’s Child. Then he plans a third and, hopefully, a novel.
With local actors Michael Hollis and co-producer Kristen Day in the title roles, Amiri & Aroha is kind of a modern-day Maori version of Romeo & Juliet, Whittet says.
As a child Aroha — the daughter of a notorious gang leader — is betrothed to her cousin Hunapo (Shayne Biddle), but as she approaches womanhood she falls in love with her soulmate, Amiri. And if there were not enough potential for conflict in that situation, Whittet has added in a sub-plot whereby the locals pitch themselves against a greedy developer who wants to harvest water from the beautiful Rere Falls.
Thanks to the involvement of the soothsayer Matakite (Cushla Tangaere) there is a fantasy element to the story and Whittet says that is something he will be developing as the trilogy develops. Aside from that, The Guide won’t spoil future twists by adding much more, except that the stories are likely to get progressively darker.
An obvious question, though, is how authentically stories — sometimes negative stories — about Maori characters and issues can be told by Whittet, a former Londoner.
“In my work as a family doctor I spent 17 years working with the community of Te Karaka, so I feel I learned a lot during that time,” he says. “Also, even in the very early stages of making the film I talked to many Maori about how I saw things and how that compared with how they saw things.”
That authenticity has yet to be tested . . . Whittet says that while overseas audiences were very interested in Maori culture, they were “looking from the outside”.
“There is definitely international interest and, of course, that is very gratifying,” he said. “But I guess the true measure of it will be seen this weekend when the local audiences see it in Gisborne.”
David Whittet had made a number of films before moving to New Zealand in the early 1990s, but says making Amiri & Aroha was, quite literally, a trial by fire.
He worked with Gisborne fire fighters to get background footage for a central scene. He learned how to do gruesomely effective burn make-up. He took a course in “fight work”, for on-screen punch-ups.
And he learned more about editing in two months than he had in the 20 years before.
“The thing with international film festivals is that none seem to agree on how short a film has to be before it qualifies as a ‘short film’ . . . some say 30 minutes, some say 50,” he said.
He pulled a few all-nighters to do the early cuts, but says that, at 45 minutes long, the version to be screened in Gisborne on Sunday is likely to be the final edit.
Combined with his medical practice in Kurow — and the rural medicine project in Cambodia he is currently involved in — it all takes a toll on wife Siriporn (Ooy) and children Mark (12) and Rebecca (10).
“Taking on such a big project is always going to have an impact on the family so I am grateful that they have all got involved in the process.”
Which, given there is much more work to come, is just as well.
Whittet has put out a casting call and, with the support of most of the original cast members, plans to begin shooting for Amiri’s Child next week, if not before.
“I can do the editing while I am down South so hopefully we’ll get most of the footage required,” he says.
“In the meantime, I hope that people in Gisborne take the opportunity to see Amiri & Aroha and decide for themselves how they think the story has been told.”
■ A private screening of Amiri & Aroha for cast and crew will be held at the Dome Cinema at 5pm on Sunday, with a public screening booked for 7.30pm. Tia Takarangi-Chan — who wrote the original music for the film — will perform at the first screening.