Three NZ Films At Shanghai International Film Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday 25th May 2011

Chinese Premiere For Three New Zealand Films At Shanghai International Film Festival

Three New Zealand films have been selected to screen in the Panorama section of the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival which runs from 11 - 19 June.

Based on real life events, Desert, the debut feature film from writer/director Stephen Kang, follows the story of Jenny, a young pregnant Asian girl living in Auckland who is left to fend for herself when she is abandoned by her Kiwi boyfriend just before they are about to get married. Rejected by her Asian community for getting pregnant to a westerner out of wed-lock and after unsuccessfully searching for her run away boyfriend, Jenny is forced to look inside herself to find a positive solution for her and her unborn baby.

Desert premièred at the Pusan International Film Festival in October 2010 and is currently in release in New Zealand. Kang's debut short Blue was last week awarded the Grand Prix at Critics Week which is a sidebar alongside the Cannes Film Festival. Stephen and producers will attend Shanghai where they will be doing preliminary casting for their upcoming feature 'Summer Rhapsody' which stars a female Chinese lead.

Love Birds is the second feature film collaboration for director Paul Murphy and writer Nick Ward (Second-Hand Wedding). A hilarious charming romantic comedy that tells the story of a regular Kiwi bloke who finds himself on a quest to find true love - all with the help of a native New Zealand Shelduck - Love Birds stars Golden Globe winner Sally Hawkins (Happy Go Lucky, Made in Daggenheim) and NZ stand-up comedian and actor Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords). The film has just completed its theatrical release in NZ.

Tense chase movie Tracker completes the line-up of NZ films selected. Starring Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast, The Edge of Darkness) and Temuera Morrison (The Green Lantern, Once Were Warriors) Tracker tells the tale of a guerrilla survivor of the South African Boer War who lands in colonial New Zealand and is promised a huge bounty to capture Kereama, a Maori seafarer accused of killing a British soldier. A UK/NZ co-production Tracker was written by Nicholas van Pallandt and directed by Ian Sharp.

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