A two-hour dramatisation that received $2.6 million in taxpayer funding and tells the story of the Rose Noelle is being partly filmed in Whangarei, with the production company looking for extras for the shoot.
Auckland production company Making Movies received the funding from NZ on Air last year to make the dramatised production.
To be called Abandoned, it's believed to be centred at Orama Oasis, Karaka Bay, at the north end of Great Barrier, with additional filming at Tutukaka.
The producers were casting for extras in the Tutukaka area recently. On its website makingmovies.co.nz the company says: "With little more than hope and each other, four sailors are trapped in their upside down yacht."
The programme will look at the case of the Rose Noelle that made international headlines in 1989, an intriguing story of a trimaran, which went missing and drifted for 119 days before smashing onto rocks at Great Barrier Island. It will tell the story of the crew's survival, the NZ on Air website says.