Nice day for a brown wedding

Oscar Kightley (centre) hopes Sione's Wedding will be fun for everyone who sees it, no matter what their ethnic background.

There's a bunch of "brown guys" in Sione's Wedding, but the film wouldn't be the same without a bit of the old ebony and ivory action. And we're not just talking about the antics of Michael, the hunky Samoan cycle courier with an eye for European women.

This is a joint project by Samoan writer, actor and presenter, Oscar Kightley, and a few Pakeha fellas - sorry, a few Palagi fellas - including director Chris Graham and co-writer James Griffin.

"It was important that the film had to appeal to the Samoan community, in that what they were seeing was authentic and real, but it was just as important for the film to succeed as a film and as a story," says Kightley, who also stars in the movie as Albert.

"We weren't trying to make a ghettoised movie about Samoans. Sione's was an opportunity to tell a story about a New Zealand perspective that doesn't often get seen in our movies."

The Samoan-meets-Palagi writing team also means the comedy in Sione's Wedding is more broad than shows such as bro'Town, which has a strong focus on Polynesian humour.

Kightley, who writes for bro'Town and is a member of theatre group the Naked Samoans, says he doesn't regard it as specifically Pacific Island humour. "It's just funny. And you want everybody to love it. You don't just want the boys to love it.

"But it is Pacific Island humour in the sense that New Zealand is an island in the Pacific and I think we're now far more au fait with our Pacific Island identity," says Kightley in between slurps on his morning mocha at Grey Lynn's Urban Jungle Cafe.

He's just come from Niu FM where he does the 6am to 10am radio show with Teuila Blakely, who stars in the movie as the lovely Leilani.

Grey Lynn is the suburb where Sione's Wedding is set.

Just down the road from the cafe is the basketball court where Albert (the good boy), and his three bros, Sefa (the party boy, played by Shimpal Lelisi), Stanley (the weird one, played by Iaheto Ah Hi) and Michael (the ladies man, played by Robbie Magasiva), shoot hoops and "think they're Kobe Bryant". Lelisi, Ah Hi and Magasiva are also members of the Naked Samoans.

Even though the four lads they play in the film are in their 30s, they still call themselves the Duckrockers, the name of their gang from school.

They go out all night and get wasted, and cause havoc at every wedding they go to.

Kightley: "There are a few experiences that bond us all around the globe. Childbirth, of course. Poos and wees, of course. And weddings.

"Every country, every culture has a different way of celebrating it but everybody loves a wedding. You get lots of invites to other stuff but weddings are really hard not to go to if you get invited."

In the movie, Albert and his Duckrockers have a problem - the minister has banned them from going to the wedding of Michael's younger brother, Sione, because of their troublemaking. In the past they've done things such as falling on the cake and bonking in the back seat of the wedding car.

However, if the boys can get girlfriends - real ones, not from an escort agency - to take to the wedding, then they can go.

"But in order to get girlfriends you have to grow up," says Kightley. "The city is full of these units of boys who run around in packs. Their happiest day is from form four and they hang onto that at the expense of living in the real world.

"But there comes a point where you have to leave school because girls are quite grown up, especially the really onto-it ones who don't let you get away with shit. Sione's is a coming of age story. It's like Stand By Me, but with brown guys who are in their 30s."

This is Kightley and director Chris Graham's first feature film. Completing it is a childhood-dream-come-true for both of them.

Kightley always wanted to see his name on the big screen. "It's like tagging. That's why so many Island kids are into tagging, you just like leaving your mark. But making movies is a much better way to leave your mark. You don't get arrested.

"For the past 13 years it's been a dream I've had burning away in the back of my head, but I always told myself I'm not going to believe it until I was sitting in the cinema watching it. I've done that a few times now, so I do believe it."

Graham - an incredibly friendly chap who made his name in short films, commercials and music videos - has wanted to make feature films since he saw Star Wars when he was 6.

He was scheduled to be at the interview with Kightley but his flight from Wellington was cancelled. But, on the phone from Wellington later in the day, he explains how initially he told producer John Barnett he wasn't the right person to direct Sione's Wedding.

"[Barnett] disagreed and said, 'It's not a Samoan story. It's a universal story. It's specifically Samoan but with universal themes and characters'. So once I read the script and looked at it that way I felt I was the right person to make it."

Graham is no stranger to Samoan culture. He says he's been into hip-hop since the early 80s and because of that he's hung out with Pacific Island people most of his life. He also has many Samoan friends, including rapper and musician Tha Feelstyle (Kas Futialo) who contributes to the movie soundtrack.

Graham directed Tha Feelstyle's video for the single Su'amalie/Ain't Mad At You, which he shot in Samoa.

"I had a non-religious spiritual experience there," says Graham of the two weeks he spent in the country.

Graham acquired an affinity with different cultures as a child because his father was a diplomat and the Graham family was posted overseas.

He has always found other cultures fascinating. "Even as a kid I came to realise that New Zealand, and Western, lifestyles are only one part of how life is lived by people on the planet. I've always been fascinated by other cultures and how they approach living life."

He hopes this background and his directorial approach will make the film appealing to an international audience.

"I often said to my crew, 'I want to put on my international glasses and look at the scene we're doing'. I was seeing whether Europeans - and potentially Americans and other cultures - would understand the slang in the scenes, or whether it was too heavy.

"But in the same way I trust my sense of humour, we had to trust that the New Zealand sense of humour and way of life would be universal enough to be understood by overseas audiences."

Kightley agrees: "I think it will appeal to countries that have migrant cultures in the same way that I wanted to go see East Is East, or American Me, about Latinos living in LA. Hopefully the humour and the vibe in it is universal enough.

"I've read that in Italy there's a problem with lots of 30-year-olds never leaving home.

"So I don't think it's just an Island thing to live at home in the garage for as long as possible and be irresponsible and hang out with your mates rather than face the challenges of real life."
Sione's Wedding is arguably the best funny New Zealand film since Came A Hot Friday, which starred Billy T. James. "And that was 20 years ago," Graham says.

He knows comedy is the hardest film genre to pull off. He admits he was scared, but knew the mix of a funny screenplay and the rapport between the Naked Samoans would work.

Graham says the cast and crew had a good chemistry. That shows in the movie and some of the best scenes resulted from the actors improvising while Graham let the cameras roll.

One such is where Tania (Madeleine Sami) makes herself into a panther with paper clips as fangs. Or the bit when Michael spits out his eggs mid-laughter. And when Michael starts humping Sefa on the bed. "Then I had to convince the producers that behind closed doors, sometimes men do that," Graham says.

New Zealand has been hanging out for years to have a good laugh from one of its own movies.

Remember Goodbye Pork Pie? But lately most local films have been beautiful, serious, and at times, damned depressing such as In My Father's Den, Whale Rider, Rain, and River Queen.

Kightley: "I come out of New Zealand films thinking: 'Gosh we have a beautiful country, gosh we have some strange people living in the suburbs, gosh we have some intense people living in the rural sector. But I can't remember the last one where I walked out feeling good and uplifted'."

Chances are you'll come out of Sione's Wedding feeling just that - and maybe a little bit cheeky, too.