It's had primetime current affairs coverage and celebrity endorsements. But local movie Netherwood - a rural western thriller produced by and starring onetime Shortland Street-ers Will Hall and Owen Black - hasn't been able to get itself a cinema run, despite selling out its sessions in Christchurch at the New Zealand International Film Festival last year.
So its makers are taking it on the road for a series of 23 one-off screenings starting at Auckland's Academy Cinema on January 28 and ending up at the Waipara Community Hall, near where it was shot in 2009, in late February.
Hall and Black will be hosting the screenings on the whistle-stop tour entitled The Netherwood Rural Roadshow.
"We're keen to get our film out there and have a good time while we're at it," says Black.
In the R16 film Black plays a drifter who wanders into rural Netherwood and comes up against a wealthy landowner, among various other colourful locals.