The Whanganui-shot film Pearl will make its New Zealand premiere at the Embassy 3 cinema later this month. Photo / Bevan Conley
The Whanganui-shot film Pearl will make its New Zealand premiere at the Embassy 3 cinema later this month. Photo / Bevan Conley
The period horror film Pearl will finally have its New Zealand premiere in the Whanganui cinema it was partially shot in.
The film will premiere at the Embassy 3 Cinema for a one-off screening at 7.30pm on April 27 for the Terror-Fi Film Festival.
The film is a prequel to the 2022 slasher movie X, which was also shot in the region, with Pearl being created thanks to the crew having to stay in New Zealand after X wrapped due to the Covid-19 Delta lockdown.
Director Ti West and lead actress Mia Goth came up with the screenplay while in managed isolation, with the movie then shot in and around Whanganui in the autumn of 2021.
Parts of Victoria Ave, Ridgway Street, The Royal Whanganui Opera House and The Embassy 3 Cinema were transformed for the production, which is set in a small Texan town in 1918.
The movie was released in the US in September 2022 to critical and financial success but was yet to have an official release in New Zealand.
Embassy 3 owner Gary Vinnell said the premiere will be great as people will finally be able to see the fruits of a lot of labour.
“It’s great for Whanganui because people will be able to come and see themselves on screen and see what they did because naturally the streets were closed when they were doing it,” he said.
During the shoot, Vinnell said he discussed with the filmmakers about doing a premiere, so he was pleased to finally have it come to fruition.
“We’re really pleased to do it, very pleased to have the event,
“Kudos to Whanganui and kudos to all the people who were involved in getting it here,” he said.
The Embassy 3 as seen in the trailer for Pearl. Photo / Supplied
One of the locals involved in the production was former mayor Hamish McDouall who said he, his wife and his daughter were extras for two days of filming at the Opera House and Victoria Ave.
“Hopefully I’m not on the cutting room floor but that’s part of the extra life, not knowing if you’ve been kept,” McDouall said.
He said the filming days were fun and Whanganui townspeople did a great job showing up to represent the city on the big screen.
The director spoke to him during the filming and said Whanganui was an ideal place to shoot a period piece due to a large number of heritage buildings in the city.
The film’s producer also told him the environment at the Lambhill Homestead in Fordell, where scenes for both Pearl and X were shot, was very similar to the southern states.
“He said... if you take out these two cabbage trees which we can do digitally, you could be Georgia you could be Ohio you could be Texas, so this is just the type of location American producers would want.”
The production of both films was a great boon to the local economy during the lockdown and he credited Whanganui & Partners’ Emma Bugden for enabling the crew to come to town.
Terror-Fi Film Festival organiser James Partridge said the community involvement in the film was the reason the premier had to be in the city.
“It had to be in Whanganui like there was just no question because it was shot there and sometimes the big cities get these premieres so it was really important to me that Whanganui got it,” he said.
Last year he said Terror-Fi worked with the distributors of X to co-release the film as part of the festival and worked with the worldwide distributors of Pearl, Universal Pictures, for this year’s festival.
He said films like this were perfect for the festival, as its objective was to bring films which wouldn’t otherwise get a theatrical release to Aotearoa.
“I’m a genre guy so I always think these films are best seen on a giant screen in a dark room with a whole bunch of people.”
He said the screenings of X at last year’s festival sold out, so he expected the showings of Pearl to be packed.
People can buy tickets to the screening at Terror-Fi’s website and Embassy 3′s website, with further one-off screenings happening in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch.
