About.
Company
New Zealand International Film Festival
Duration
96 minutes
Advisory
M Offensive language & suicide references
NZ 2020
In English and Te Reo Māori, with English subtitles
Premiering their forthcoming web series as a special festival presentation, director Max Currie (Everything We Loved, NZIFF14) and writer Cole Meyers’ queer and trans-positive drama swells with character and heart.
A young trans activist, Caz (Elz Carrad), breaks down in tears in front of a support group towards the start of Rūrangi. He doesn’t know how he can help the queer people in front of him, and feels entirely guilty, even shameful about that fact. Like many of our young queer people, he’s burned out not by his struggle, but by the struggle of those around him. Having fled his hometown of Rūrangi to find himself, Caz returns hoping to connect not just with his father (Kirk Torrance), who he left ten years ago, pre-transition, but the small community whose residents are having struggles of their own now as well.
Rūrangi is unapologetically frank and unapologetically queer, with not just a strong ensemble – Ramon Te Wake, Arlo Green and Kirk Torrance being special standouts – but a diverse, inclusive cast. But the calling card for the web series, packaged here into a slick five-episode binge watch, is the searing screen debut of Elz Carrad. Carrad carries the entire series on his shoulders; he externalises, with detail and charisma, the struggles of a person stuck between wanting, nay, needing, to talk about and express his own demons, but always caught dealing with the needs of others. — Sam Brooks
Aotearoa films presented in association with Resene.
Credits
Max Currie
Director
Craig Gainsborough
Producer
Cole Meyers, Max Currie, Tweedie Waititi, Melissa Nickerson
Co-Producers
Cole Meyers, Oliver Page
Screenplay
Johannes Louis
Photography
Brough Johnson, Dan Kircher
Editors
Henric Matthiesen, Nick Lowry
Production designers
Lachlan Anderson
Music
With
Elz Carrad
Caz Davis
Kirk Torrance
Gerald David
Āwhina Rose Henare Ashby
Anahera
Arlo Green
Jem
Ramon Te Wake
Ellie
Renee Lyons
Colleen RIchter
Aroha Rawson
Whina
Renée Sheridan
Agnes
Sonny Tupu
Andrew ‘Andy’ Ainofo
Book
Tickets.
Tickets.
Adult $18.50
Student $15.50
Senior $12.50
Multi-Trip Pass $77.50
Multi-Trip Pass
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