Tuatara love story set to be big-screen hit

WARWICK SMITH/Manawatu Standard

STAR BILLING: Film-maker Jane Adcroft and her friend Karla Braun-Elwert have made a film about two tuatara lovers. It's been nominated for two awards at the Reel Earth Film Festival, which opens on Saturday.

Relevant offers

It doesn't usually take 40 years for a couple to get it on, but the stars of Love in Cold Blood are a little different.

In fact, it's likely the two main characters in the short film are blissfully unaware how close they are to achieving international fame. Meet Henry, 111, and Mildred, 80, the world's highest-profile tuataras.

The story of their love affair has been brought to screen by Dunedin-based film-makers Jane Adcroft and Karla Braun-Elwert, and will screen here next week as part of the Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival.

Their film is up for both the best short film and best New Zealand film prize at the festival, which starts tomorrow.

In town ahead of the festival's gala opening, Adcroft, 24, said the tuatara's tale was a pleasure to tell.

With the help of the tuatara's keeper at Southland museum and gallery, Lindsay Hazley, the film-makers coaxed out the story of the reptilian romance.

The yarn is well-known in Invercargill. After being in captivity together since about 1970, the pair finally got intimate and produced a litter of babies.

Henry had been well-known for his aggression, and was disinterested in sex until a cancerous growth was removed from his bottom.

Adcroft and Braun-Elwert, both graduates of the Otago University wildlife film-making course, had not heard the story until they had to work together on a project as part of their masters degree.

They could not agree on a subject, so opened a National Geographic at random to a story about a tuatara. Further investigation unearthed the two Southland lovers.

"We didn't want to do the standard wildlife film, we wanted to inject our sense of humour," Adcroft said. "And their story is great – the mayor's in on it, the town's in on it, they're celebrities."

It took eight months to make, with the pair having to film quickly as the tuatara prepared to hibernate.

"The animal is not going to do what you want it to do, because you can't really tell a tuatara `can you go over there and eat that bug, then do it again?'. It can be quite hard to make it look exciting."

The winners of the film awards will be announced tomorrow night.

Reel Earth Film Festival screening programmes can be picked up from Downtown Cinemas.

OPENING GALA

Film-makers are descending on town and the green carpet is ready for rolling out at the opening gala of the Reel Earth Film Festival tomorrow.

Following the official awards night, 26 feature films and more than 50 short films will screen at Downtown Cinemas until June 5.

Festival co-director Brent Barrett said it was the best and most extensive programme of environmental films ever seen in Australasia.

"This is the chance for the Manawatu to have some profile ... people come from all over the world because they want to see the tuatara, they want to see the blue penguin and Fiordland. We are bringing that all together in the Manawatu."

- © Fairfax NZ News