This year is the festival’s 20th anniversary and Flyger is excited beyond belief that Peninsula is screening there.
“It is a privilege to be selected for a pretty competitive and top-tier film festival. Our film was chosen by people who don’t know us,” Flyger said.
“This shows that it appeals to a global audience.”
Flyger is a long-time friend of the film’s writer and director Fiona McKenzie. After catching up several years ago, they both lamented over the lack of narrative projects made on Banks Peninsula.
An idea began to brew. They discussed making a television web-series focused on real and heart-warming content.
However, in order to source the funds to start the series, Flyger said, they “needed to put themselves back on the map.”
Peninsula was born.
It was then shot over three days in Port Levy.
Flyger said Banks Peninsula is the fourth character in the triage character film.
“It has so many extremes, big clouds or blue skies, you never know what you’ll get but it’s a beautiful place each way,” said Flyger.
As an independent film, Flyger said it was immensely fun to make as they only had to answer to themselves.
The film was largely crowd-funded – with almost $18,000 raised on Boosted.
After completing the film, they sent it away to independent film festivals but Covid-19 led to further delays for its premiere.
Said Flyger: “It was quite wonderful to get this news so long after we started.”
“Our measure of the film’s success is connecting people,” said Flyger.
“When people watch the film, we want them to leave feeling changed and uplifted; seeing the world a bit differently than before.”
The film festival was founded by film producer Jane Rosenthal and actor Robert de Niro in 2001.
It runs from June 9-20.
