New "no-budget" New Zealand film Taking the Waewae Express examines the impact of a foolish and avoidable accident.
Shane Gilchrist reports.
"I've driven drunk before; I've driven stoned, too fast, spun-out heaps of times."
"Yeah, but you never killed anyone."
The "no-budget" New Zealand film Taking the Waewae Express may focus on the repercussions of a fatal crash, but it is more than just an examination of the world of males and cars.
Redemption, growth, friendship and love are also key themes.
As screenplay writer for the film, Andrea Bosshard had much of the work done for her.
A teacher at the Wellington Performing Arts Centre, she used an improvisational method developed by celebrated British director Mike Leigh.
Her students workshopped ideas, developed characters and a narrative. The result: a feature film.
"This particular class got partway through this improvisational period and we all knew we had a much bigger story on our hands . . .
"We just made the film for ourselves, our friends and families.
"The whole idea of an audience was very small, but when we had a first screening, there were about 1200 people there and we realised it really did touch a nerve.
"We had been working with it for so long that we were immune to the emotions of the film.
"We were consistently finding that audiences were getting very emotionally involved with it. There were people crying in the audience."
Taking the Waewae Express centres on the death of a young man in a foolish and avoidable car accident, looking at the impact on his family and friends - in particular, his best friend, who was driving.
It is a moving piece of work, but not necessarily bleak.
Indeed, there are enough humorous scenes to allow the hankie to dry.
"We didn't set out to make a particular type of film," Bosshard explains via telephone from Wellington before the film's opening tonight at Dunedin's Metro Cinema.
"We just wanted to tell a story about boys and cars. But when you get a roomful of actors who are improvising and playing off each other, humour just flows.
"Some of those improvisations were so fantastic and so exciting to watch. I'd take a very invisible role, just sit in a corner and watch what was going on, but sometimes I would struggle to contain my laughter."
The ensemble cast of Taking the Waewae Express includes a range of cultures; Pakeha, Maori, Malaysian and Swedish characters (and languages) are thrown together in a cosmopolitan mix.
Bosshard says, though, that was a reflection of the make-up of her class.
It also gave the film an extra dimension: the seemingly random arrival of a Swedish love interest (Agneta) and a Malaysian taxi driver (Danny) serve as poultices, helping ease the pain of others.
In doing so, they provide light in a dark situation.
"A lot of New Zealand films are very bleak and there is quite a lot of cruelty to them," Bosshard explains.
"I'm not saying everything has to feel good, but there is often no sense of hope, of moving on.
"And I think with this process of putting a group of actors together in one room there is a need or urgency to sort things out. I think that is human nature and it manifests itself in the improvisational situation."
The film took three weeks to shoot last year, "in the wettest June on record", with another 10 days spent editing.
With a budget of just $14,000 (financial help came from brother Sam, the Wellington Performing Arts Centre and the J. R. McKenzie Trust), Waewae Express was filmed in high-definition digital.
Bosshard, a former pupil of Dunedin's Logan Park High School, says digital technology provides the freedom to make films on a bigger scale.
"Shane [Loader] and I both started out in film, on Super 8, which cost $20 to shoot three minutes of film or something.
"Then we went to 16mm, which cost $400 for 10 minutes just for film stock alone. So it was very prohibitive."
Waewae Express may be Bosshard's first feature film, but she and her partner, fellow film-maker, director and editor Shane Loader have worked together for nearly 20 years, producing a range of dramas, including Walking Past Midnight and The Intruder and the documentary Backroom Troubles.
As a consequence of Waewae Express, Bosshard and Loader have been approached by several professional actors interested in "contributing to the shape of the drama in a way that you don't when you are just given a script".
See it
Taking The Waewae Express opens at Metro Cinema, Dunedin, tonight.
