Kiwi film on world stage

SUCCESSFUL SIMONE: Mayor Bob Harvey with filmmaker Simone Horrocks at the world premiere of her first feature film After the Waterfall.

ACTOR: Antony Starr as John Drean, the main character in After the Waterfall.

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MOVIE-MAKER Simone Horrocks resorted to some old-fashioned tactics after finding a book she wanted the film rights to.

She took a bottle of New Zealand wine around to the author's flat in London and convinced him to agree.

The former Titirangi resident moved to England at the age of 19 to study filmmaking.

She completed several short productions and was looking for her first feature movie project.

She found it in Steven Blanchard's novel The Paraffin Child.

It's taken 12 years but she's finally achieved her goal.

After the Waterfall had its inaugural world screening in Beijing last week and is getting rave reviews from Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey and other staff from Waitakere City Council, co-sponsors of the event.

"A lot of directors dream of having their film premiere at Cannes Film Festival, or in Hollywood, but I think Beijing is way cooler," Simone says.

The movie stars Outrageous Fortune's Antony Starr as a woodsman haunted by the disappearance of his four-year-old daughter and the subsequent break-up of his marriage.

Simone says the role was a good opportunity for Antony to show another side of his talent.

"He went very deep into it and really let himself go," she says.

"`If you look really closely in the film, you can even see his ungroomed fingernails."

After the Waterfall was shot entirely in west Auckland and Simone is grateful to the community for all the hard work it put into the project.

She now lives in Freemans Bay where she completed the film.

Simone says making the movie sent her on "a very personal journey".

"Your own life feeds the story, and coming back to New Zealand fuelled that.

"You very much do make peace with your past."

She says the film is a story of hope.

"Not everyone experiences trauma as extreme as the characters in the film but at some point in our lives we will all have the rug pulled out from under us. I am interested in the nature of human resilience. This is ultimately a film about healing."

The mother-of-two now looks forward to sharing her work with New Zealanders.

"I want to do what the Topp Twins do and get out there and meet the audiences."

Go online to www.nzff.co.nz for screening information.

- © Fairfax NZ News