By ELEANOR BLACK
What's shaping up to be New Zealand's cinematic phenomenon of next year started yesterday.
Or so it would seem after Whale Rider screened in Auckland to an invitation-only audience, giving local media a first look at the film which has already created an international buzz.
The Niki Caro-directed adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's 1987 novel doesn't open until January 30, one day after its 12-year-old star, Keisha Castle-Hughes, starts high school.
The film won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival. It also got a standing ovation at San Sebastian, Spain, where Caro said no one had heard of New Zealand, or of Maori people.
Yesterday, journalists, exhibitors and guests, including teachers and students who have studied the novella, were clearly impressed by the deceptively simple film about - as its young star puts it - finding "what you need, not what you want".
Rather than the usual question-and-answer session afterwards, there came repeated thank-yous from audience members, who joked about how many tissues they had gone through.
The reaction confirmed producer John Barnett's prediction that Whale Rider may become a local screen phenomenon on the scale of Once Were Warriors.
"What happens is we make lots of pictures. But every now and then there is a picture that really does crest the wave and it just keeps going. And I think this picture can do the same."
First-time actor Keisha was chosen from 10,000 children for the lead role. Casting director Diana Rowan visited her Auckland school and noticed the bubbly child "passing notes and doing girly stuff" during English.
"I like English but I just wasn't in the mood that day," said Keisha. "And then we saw these two ladies [come into the classroom] and we thought we'd show off." The movie, set and filmed in the tiny coastal community of Whangara, north of Gisborne, draws on the Maori legend of Paikea, the whale rider, whose descendants are said to live on the East Coast.
"It was a real privilege for the people of Whangara ... to trust us enough to let us tell their story," said Keisha. "You knew it was so important you just couldn't muck it up."
Whale Rider predicted to crest the wave
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