By DITA DE BONI
A New Zealand coming-of-age movie sneaked up on the Toronto International Film Festival to win the People's Choice Award.
The success of Whale Rider, filmed in Gisborne, appears to have caught out its local distributor, Buena Vista International, as well.
The film's local release, originally to have
been next Easter, has been "fast-tracked" to before the end of the year.
At its premiere, Whale Rider won the People's Choice award ahead of Britain's popular Bend It Like Beckham and US entry Bowling for Columbine, an analysis of American gun violence by social activist Michael Moore.
Until this year, only Canadian film-makers had won the award.
Based on the novel Paikea by Witi Ihimaera, about a Maori ancestor who escaped death by riding on the back of a whale, Whale Rider was greeted by packed-out audiences and standing ovations at both its screenings.
Actor Sam Neill, who was in the audience at one screening, gave an impromptu speech of thanks to the film-makers which reportedly reduced director Niki Caro and much of the audience to tears.
The film is the second work from Ms Caro, a television and film director and writer for the past 10 years.
Her last feature film, Memory and Desire, was one of only seven selected worldwide for critics' week at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998, and was voted Best Film at the 1999 New Zealand Film Awards.
Whale Rider's main character, a young Maori girl who assumes a mythic mantle of leadership over the objections of her traditionally minded grandfather, was played by 12-year-old first-time actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.
Her co-star in the South Pacific Pictures production was Cliff Curtis, who has recently appeared in US movies including Collateral Damage, Training Day and Blow.
The LA Times called Castle-Hughes' performance quietly heroic and lauded the film for not trafficking in the "usual coming-of-age/sexual awakening cliches".
"[It] sneaked up on audiences here as other, bigger films hogged the spotlight."
The People's Choice Award, presented at the end of the 10-day festival, is not considered to have the stature of Cannes' Palme d'Or, but has launched huge commercial hits such as Amelie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and American Beauty.
Whale Rider is the first feature film to receive part of its $10 million budget from the Film Commission's $22 million production fund.
