KEY POINTS:
Taika Waititi seems to collect careers. He is an actor, comedian, photographer, illustrator, writer and director.
He is almost as funny as his film. On this night's first Auckland film festival screening of Eagle vs Shark the sellout audience has already chuckled its way through, then warmly applauded, writer-director Taika Waititi's much-anticipated debut feature.
It's infuriating and funny and awkward and touching and visually poetic and utterly New Zild and ... just how does its maker describe it?
"Just arthouse tragi-comedy. I challenge people to say exactly what kind of film it is without using the words 'quirky' - or 'wacky' or 'zany'.
Now the lights are up, behind the microphone on the Civic stage is the film's 32-year-old director, who has had the words "promising" welded to his name since his debut short film Two Cars, One Night was nominated for an Oscar in 2005.
He's attempting to answer questions shouted from the audience. But it becomes almost more of a performance piece, a stand-up routine. He alternates between replying in dry-humoured quips and gently chastising those who can't stay for the encore and are trying to depart.
Smiling behind Waititi on stage are his partner Loren Horsley, who plays Lily, one half of the films odd couple (Horsley shares a "story by" credit with the writer-director), and producer Ainsley Gardiner, who guided him through Two Cars, One Night and his next short, Tama Tu, set with Maori Battalion soldiers in Italy.
If Waititi comes across as more comedian than director, that's because he is - well, was. Among other things - as well as acting on stage and screen (with roles in The Strip, Scarfies, and the Untold Tales of Maui) Waititi has proved himself as a visual artist, photographer, and illustrator. He's also dabbled in fashion design.
"We've just got to keep him making films, says Cliff Curtis, one of Eagle vs Shark's two producers about their resident renaissance man, or he'll be off starting a clothes label or something."
Waititi has been a rising talent for some years now. It's just his seemingly restless diverse talent has now finally focused on film.
He's gone from being a photogenic presence in front of the camera to a taking control behind it; his style informed by his flair for other visual media.
Comedy-wise, the askew deadpan, occasionally surreal, sense of humour in Eagle vs Shark could be tracked back to his days as part of the Humourbeasts, an award-winning globe-trekking comedy duo with Jemaine Clement, who plays Jarrod, the films oddball male lead.
Clement is now half of musical-comedy double act Flight of the Conchords, whose self-titled deadpan, occasionally surreal, sitcom - two episodes of which Waititi directed - debuted in the US in June, the same week Eagle vs Shark opened in New York.
American arthouse distributor Miramax grabbed the rights to the largely New Zealand Film Commission-funded movie in January, and gave it a modest commercial release stateside, after it screened in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where Waititi has been a past regular.
It has been greeted with a mixed critical reaction ranging from five stars in movie-geek magazine Film Threat to dismissive two-star reviews in Hollywood industry papers Variety and Hollywood Reporter - although on the eve of the film's appearance at Sundance this year the influential Variety also named him in its "10 directors to watch" list.
Many US critics cited similarities to 2004 American cult geeky comedy Napoleon Dynamite, something Waititi has frequently rebuffed - "it's a rip-off of much better films than Napoleon Dynamite" he has said - and he shrugs away another Napoleon question at the Civic.
Waititi has done these post-screening Q&A sessions before as Eagle vs Shark swooped its way around the international festival circuit Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam, Austin and a few nights earlier with its New Zealand premiere in hometown Wellington. He's glad the film is finally back where it was made.
"The film is made for New Zealanders and it's been so long now that I've had to show it to other people.
"Obviously, there is a lot of expectation and people really want to support New Zealand film now, but it just felt like bringing something home - it's really special."
Flashback: The Oscars 2005 and, as the nominees for the Short Film Live Action category are read out, the screen shows each unknown director in their seats at the back.
As the camera focuses on Waititi, he appears to be asleep. In on the gag, Horsley nudges him awake. ("It was probably my biggest audience" she says, laughing). And although he didn't win, he at least got himself noticed.
Waititi, who has occasionally gone under his mother's surname, Cohen, in some of his creative pursuits, has no regrets about feigning slumber during what was supposedly the biggest moment of his career thus far.
"No way, never. I never regret pulling one of the best gags in American TV history," he laughs over lunch on the day of the Civic screening.
"That is so funny. Everyone over there loved it but you come back home and it's 'dude you shamed us'. Sometimes here people get so uptight about stuff. Who the hell knew I was from New Zealand anyway?"
In person, Waititi comes across as curiously relaxed and direct for a man with creative energy and enthusiasm to burn. He isn't a bit quirky, wacky or zany -although his turquoise velour sweatshirt might suggest otherwise. Then again, he might just be tired of talking about himself after the US promotional trail for the film.
Eagle vs Shark came from Horsley giving Waititi another nudge. Having completed the two shorts, his planned first feature was The Volcano, an extension of Two Cars, One Night about Maori kids growing up in the 80s in rural Bay of Plenty.
But Waititi felt that script wasn't yet ready and he and Horsley started talking about another idea - and soon pictures of Lily started to flower in their imaginations.
In person, the curly-haired Horsley is unrecognisable from the meek and monotone Lily. Her previous screen experience included little-seen OE comedy Kombi Nation, and roles in television dramas The Strip and The Insiders Guide to Happiness. She says Lily was related to a character she had performed in the play The Hand Job, written by Conrad Newport.
"That was the first time I had played someone who was shy and awkward as opposed to chatty or devastated," she laughs. "They were the two options for my career."
Waititi: "I had seen Loren play a lot of different characters in theatre and asked her if she would like to play something similar in a film. She said, sure she would love to, and really that's the opening of the development of Eagle vs Shark.
"We just talked about this character who was not the typical female protagonist - somebody who in most of the other films would be seen as the best friend of the main actor. So we just looked at the way she lived her life - where she worked, what kind of family environment she had and then, eventually, what kind of guy it would be good to pit her against to create good conflict. Not necessarily the perfect man for her, far from it, but somebody who actually made it a little more interesting than you would see in a typical romantic comedy."
The imperfect man was Jarrod. Despite being self-involved, immature, insecure and "so complicated", Lily thinks he's worth pursuing, even after she meets his family.
"He's kind of a mix of probably the worst traits of men - especially as teenagers. Most of the characters in the film are teenagers stuck in adult bodies. It was fun making people tap into their childhoods, tap into the awkwardness they used to feel."
Originally, Waititi was going to play Jarrod himself and shoot it cheap on digital video. But largely due to the Oscar attention, the films scope and budget grew along with the expectations for it.
"We thought it would be better just to concentrate on directing - and just learn how to make a film, and I was really happy using Jemaine as well."
Before going into production they were invited to workshop scenes from it at the Sundance Film Institute, having taken early drafts of The Volcano to a previous Sundance screenwriters' lab.
The workshop, where directors and actors could critique the work in progress, was useful to find the right offbeat tone for the film.
"I had a pretty clear idea about the script and the storyline because I didn't want to do a broad comedy. I didn't want to do anything too arty and depressing - or too New Zealand. It was just finding a nice little line between them."
Not only is Eagle vs Shark Waititi's first feature, it also marks another career departure for him: It's his first specifically non-Maori film. It's largely set in a world of Pakeha suburbia. The way it's worked out has its benefits.
"I really didn't want to be boxed into becoming a certain kind of film-maker - becoming the Maori story film-maker because I had made those short films. I wanted to go back to my more theatrical comedy roots and make something with a bunch of friends in my creative community back home in Wellington with all the people I had grown up with in theatre.
"It wasn't a conscious decision to not do anything Maori but it was more just to do something with that community of people who just happened to be mainly Pakeha."
But The Volcano will return him to his roots with its coming-of-age story reflecting part of his own upbringing.
"I had a country upbringing in a predominantly Maori community and that contrasted with a very multi-cultured arts community in the Aro Valley in Wellington; growing up around a lot of theatre and poets and writers and stuff. My father is a visual artist so I was influenced by him and my mother is an English teacher who forced me to read a lot of books and poetry and get involved in theatre. I developed a varied taste for different arts."
Waititi did a degree in theatre and film at Victoria University and headed out into the world to start his multifarious career, which often involved the creative mates he had made at varsity, like Clements and fellow Conchord Bret McKenzie.
"I had a good experience there. But in terms of developing my own sort of voice - that happened outside university. University was where I met Jemaine and Bret and those guys and so it was good for a few things. But I actually found learning in an institution kind of difficult. I stuck with it and finished the degree but I found I learned more out in the world doing theatre shows at Bats [theatre] and stuff."
Eventually, Waititi gravitated towards film as the mainstay of his creative output.
"Unfortunately, there aren't enough interesting acting roles in New Zealand to sustain a career," he told Variety. "At a certain point, I decided I just needed to make my own work. And after the first short did well, I realised there were a few more stories I was keen on telling, so I just kept at it."
However, Waititi says there was no master plan to become a director.
"I wanted to make a short film only as a one-off thing and it ended up doing very well and then I ended up doing another short film. I just took it in steps. I never actually decided I am going to be a film-maker, I just had a couple of short film ideas I wanted to do and then it sort of developed from there. I don't know how much I will do it. I will probably run out of ideas soon," he laughs.
"But I think the reason I really love it is it's a mixture of all the things I am interested in. And also the idea of creating a whole world and just finishing a project.
"There were so many projects I never really finished before I started film, and when you're dealing the budgets and deadlines you kind of have to finish. I found a perfect medium."
Waititi sounds glad he's cleared the hurdle of his first feature relatively unscathed. He's looking forward to seeing the home-crowd reaction to a film which may well do for Titahi Bay (where it was largely shot) what Sione's Wedding did for Grey Lynn.
"I think it will be really good here. I think it will have a really wide audience."
And although he's had his first feature released in the United States, with Britain to follow this month, Waititi is relieved he can come up for air for a while before moving on to the next one.
"That is the thing with film - you jump into the deep end and you can't jump out. There are a whole lot of people with sticks keeping you in there until two years later when you're finished, saying, keep swimming, you just keep swimming otherwise well lose money."
But he's quick to downplay his achievement. "I don't feel comfortable sitting back and saying I've finished a feature - now I've done it, now I've lived. Far from it, because it's something most people could do if they were given the opportunity or they tried hard enough. It's a far cry from performing brain surgery or replacing a heart."
