Bro'Town writer takes challenge of big screen

Oscar Kightley

He brought the Naked Samoans to the stage and the boys from Bro'Town to television. Now he is set to take on the big screen.

Sione's Wedding, a film co-written and starring Bro'Town writer and actor Oscar Kightley, started production in Auckland this week.

Kightley is excited about his first foray into film.

"When you are a storyteller, movies are the best way to attract a large audience. More people go to the movies than to the theatre.

"Film is a very exciting field and one I want to get more into."

Sione's Wedding, which will feature a large Pacific Island cast, is a comedy about a group of Samoan friends still living at home.

It is produced by South Pacific Pictures, who filmed Whale Rider, and partly funded by the New Zealand Film Commission.

Kightley dismisses the idea that the characters in the film will have similar traits to those in Bro'Town.

"Bro'Town is Bro'Town and Sione's Wedding is different," he says.

But the success of Bro'Town contributed to the film getting the green light after hovering in development for more than two years.

"Bro'Town reinforced the belief that stories from the Pacific can relate to a whole range of people," says Kightley.

"You can tell a Pacific story and you don't have to have a character from every single culture to do it."

Although the cast and director for Sione's Wedding have yet to be confirmed, Kightley is confident he will be reunited with his Naked Samoans and Bro'Town mates.

"Casting is still going and I imagine a few of them will be involved."

South Pacific Pictures publicist Rachel Lorimer says full details of the film, to be released next year, have yet to be completed.