New Zealand Film Commission Archives

Tauihu Shorts Film DIVE Selected to Screen At Telluride

September 14, 2014January 11, 2017
by tauihumedia

Tauihu Shorts Film DIVE, written and directed by Matthew Saville and produced by Julia Parnell, was selected for the 41st Telluride Film Festival from 29 August to 1 September 2014.

Telluride is one of the most prestigious US festivals and is considered a filmmakers festival with its focus on the love of film.

RIDE received two screenings at Telluride and was critically acclaimed, which should bode well for for the director’s filmmaking future.

Tauihu Media look forward to more exciting festival news to come with this brilliant short film.

Mathew Saville

Actor-director Matthew Saville is of Kiwi and South African ancestry. After studying acting and writing, his play Kikia te Poa won acclaim. Alongside acting roles, Saville created kid’s show Kune’s Kitchen. His directing debut — short film Hitch Hike — thumbed its way to film festivals in Durban and Finland.

DIVE Long Synopsis

A year after the death of the love of his life, George has hit rock bottom. He’s disheveled, living in squalor and lacking hygiene. He can’t even hang himself properly. He’s in such a sorry state that this morning, in the bathroom, George discovers that his reflection has turned its back on him. Following a frustrating attempt to trick it into turning around, George angrily throws a cup at the mirror, which then smashes, revealing a portal to a mysterious dark water void.

Suited up in old diving gear, George enters the portal and traverses the abyss in search of himself. When he emerges back in the bathroom with his reflection in tow, a clumsy fight ensues between the two flabby men, coming to an abrupt end when George gives his reflection a swift swipe to the face with a dirty toilet brush. Face to face with what he has become, George’s reflection gives him just the push he needs to confront his wife’s death and begin to deal with his grief.

Tauihu Shorts

Tauihu Shorts is a New Zealand Film Commission Executive Producer POD run by Tauihu Media under the high-end Premiere Shorts programme. It is contracted to select and oversee the production of four short films from 2010 – 2012. Each short has an allocated budget of NZ$90,000 The Tauihu Shorts executive producers are Poata Eruera, Brad Haami and Tui Ruwhiu.

Telluride Film Festival

The Telluride Film Festival is a film festival held in Telluride, Colorado, U.S., over Labor Day Weekend in September of each year.

The bulk of the program is made up of new films, and the festival’s insistence on North American premieres has led to Telluride being associated with the discovery of a number of important new films and filmmakers.

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News

Tauihu Shorts Films Find Festival Success

April 21, 2014January 15, 2017
by tauihumedia

Two short films EP’d through Tauihu Shorts have had recent festival success with Dylan Pharazyn’s The Keeper getting into the Valladolid International Film Festival, and Inorganic, directed by Maria Elena Doyle gaining entry to the Filmlets Badalona Film Festival.

Mathew Saville’s Dive, which was recently completed has started its festival rounds.

Our final film Premiere Shorts short film Ride, directed by Karyn Childs, is in the final stages of completion with delivery expected shortly.

The Keeper

A rugged, windswept bush-clad island in the Cook Strait, New Zealand, 1900. Joseph is a young lighthouse keeper struggling to wrench a life for his pregnant wife and young boy in the harsh environment. They have run out of conventional fuel for the light; they will lose their livelihood if the light fails. The family resorts to rendering fuel from bird fat, which requires slaughtering hundreds of the island’s birds, and boiling them up in an iron ‘digestor’. In the embers of the forest burn-off (to flush the birds out), his boy discovers a large mysterious egg.

Joseph’s wife has trouble with the baby and she and the boy are emergency evacuated to the mainland. Isolated and sleep deprived by his lighthouse keeping duty, Joseph keeps the light burning for their safe transport. He struggles to keep awake. Meanwhile the egg grows bigger and bigger. In a storm, a creature hatches. He is wary, but intoxicated by the exotic creature, Ava.

Hunched by the lantern, with no fuel left and at his wit’s end, Joseph is approached by Ava. She lulls him into using blood dripping from her cut palm as lantern fuel. Beguiled by the ensuing glow he falls — finally — into a deep sleep, and neglects the light. Darkness comes.

Inorganic

When Sam’s father dies on inorganic garbage collection day, Sam considers it an opportune time to clear out all the old stuff from his father’s house. The old stuff also includes dear old Dad. The only problem is that Dad is organic and the rubbish collector’s refusal to take him reveals the values of this near future consumerist-gone-mad society. When the garbage collectors discover there is money to be made in used body parts they decide to make an exception. In that moment Sam realises there is a more traditional and lucrative way to d ispose of the body. He plants an “Inorganic Vegetable Garden” which becomes a unique selling point for the estate.

DIVE

RIDE

‘Ride’ is a contemporary adventure with themes of loss, redemption and forgiveness.

When Ryan picks up Jade, who is stranded on the roadside on her way to a funeral with the coffin, it becomes apparent these two have a shared history. A dangerous incident occurs as they take a short cut road, compelling Ryan into action not only to save a life, but to potentially resolve the past.

Tauihu Shorts

You can learn more about the Valladolid International Film Festival here, and teh Filmets Badalona Film Festival here.

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News

Tauihu Media Takes On Ngā Aho Whakaari Contract

February 13, 2013January 15, 2017
by tauihumedia

Tauihu Media producer Tui Ruwhiu and Tauihu Shorts executive producer Poata Eruera have a contract to produce the short film Weaving Texas Bread as the fulfillment of a year long effort by the guild for Māori in film and television Ngā Aho Whakaari to uncover and develop screenwriting talent in the regions.

Selected from four stories under consideration in this Aho Shorts initiative, Weaving Texas Bread by Hokianga writers Marie Thompson and Wayne Te Tai tells the story of the struggle a young woman faced as she was forced to choose between her heritage of traditional spiritualism and her love and his Christian beliefs.

The Tauihu producers worked with the writers to develop the final draft, which will go into production in March helmed by Eruera. The film is due for delivery in May.

Aho Shorts was funded through Ngā Aho Whakaari by the New Zealand Film Commission in an effort to lead Māori screenwriting talent to Te Papae Ataata, the Māori feature film script development body.

Aho Shorts

Aho Shorts is a strategy to grow film story telling talent in the regions. This initiative was developed by the guild for Māori in film and television – Ngā Aho Whakaari – and funded through them by the New Zealand Film Commission. Over a two year period, writing workshops were held in the Hokianga, Waiariki and Waikaremoana. Four films have been selected for production through Aho Shorts, with a separate contract for each one.

Ngā Aho Whakaari

Ngā Aho Whakaari was established in 1996, after a series of hui called by Māori film and television practitioners concerned that Māori should be accurately represented in the development of Māori broadcasting by Government.

Many of the originators of Ngā Aho Whakaari were earlier involved with Te Manu Aute, which was an informal collective of Māori filmmakers that actively lobbied for stronger Māori representation in Government decision-making about Māori film making and broadcasting in the 1980’s.

Ngā Aho Whakaari has over recent years been primarily occupied with developments in the television sector and the structure of the board has reflected this. Tui was brought in to help bolster film experience and knowledge as well as take advantage of his marketing and communications background.

Learn more about Ngā Aho Whakaari here.

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Tauihu Shorts Film DIVE Selected to Screen At Telluride

Mathew Saville

DIVE Long Synopsis

Tauihu Shorts

Telluride Film Festival

Tauihu Shorts Films Find Festival Success

The Keeper

Inorganic

DIVE

RIDE

Tauihu Shorts

Tauihu Media Takes On Ngā Aho Whakaari Contract

Aho Shorts

Ngā Aho Whakaari