Henry and Mildred - a love story

JOHN HAWKINS

CLOSE UP: Lindsay Hazley, of the Southland Museum, with soon-to-be-film star Henry the tuatara.

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Romeo and Juliet. Anthony and Cleopatra. Henry and Mildred?

It's a love story less star-crossed, less tragic, but no less intriguing.

A short film chronicling the reptilian romance between Southland tuatara Henry and Mildred wooed the jury at the Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival on Saturday.

Love in Cold Blood, about the lovers' slow courtship, won Best New Zealand Film and Best New New Zealand Emerging Talent for its Dunedin-based directors Jane Adcroft and Carla Braun-Elwert at the festival's opening in Palmerston North.

Miss Adcroft yesterday said the wins were an "unexpected success", but the film's stars deserved the most kudos.

The tuatara couple clocked up an estimated 191 years between them before their eyes locked across the Southland Museum's tuatarium in 2008 – the first time then 111-year-old Henry had shown an interest in Mildred, 80, in the almost 40 years they shared the enclosure.

Henry's reluctance to pursue a relationship might have been because of a personal problem. Not interested in sex until a cancerous growth was removed from his nether regions, he found his mojo.

Six months after the pair were caught canoodling by curator Lindsay Hazley, Mildred laid 11 eggs. About 200 days later, 11 tuatara hatched.

Miss Adcroft said the romance was exactly the hook a film based on the slow-moving life of a tuatara needed. "They're not the world's most exciting animals."

From Perth in Western Australia, Miss Adcroft said finding a subject to film as part of their two-year University of Otago natural history film-making course had been the subject of debate with Miss Braun-Elwert.

"Carla's from Lake Tekapo and wanted to make a mountain film ... I wanted to make an Australian film."

An issue of New Zealand Geographic sparked their interest and when they found the scaley lovers the debate was over, Miss Adcroft said.

Basing themselves, appropriately, at Tuatara Backpackers in Invercargill, the film was seven months in the making before being completed in November, she said.

As well as the two wins, the pair were also given an "honourable mention" by the jury in the Best Short Film category against an international field – something that was an honour, Miss Adcroft said.

A trained zoologist, she and Miss Braun-Elwert, who has a degree in biochemistry, planned to keep making films and would continue to submit their debut to festivals.

They also want to screen Love in Cold Blood in Henry and Mildred's home town.

Mr Hazley, who attended the ceremony, said the humour in the film was key to its success.

"All the judges come up to me and said what a magnificent moving film and that it had to win," he said. "Tim Shadbolt was also in it and talking about Henry putting faith back into the elderly love life."

Festival co-director Brent Barrett said that element had struck a chord with festival audiences.

"When you're in the screenings, there's a lot of chuckling and laughter from the elderly males in the audience."

- © Fairfax NZ News