"This is actually my third screenplay but it's the first one to be made," Bright says. "I've always loved film and I'm lucky that I felt confident about working on this project but all the same it has been a huge learning curve."
Director David Stubbs wanted to make a movie featuring New Zealand love songs and contacted Bullet Heart Club, the theatre company started by Bright and Kitan Petkovski in 2013, about Daffodils. "The theatre production is very much Bullet Heart Club's and the movie is very much David's," Bright says. "Daffodils has always just as much been about the music and the songs so having LIPS involved was magic."
The film is rich with iconic Kiwi music, including Crowded House, Bic Runga, Chris Knox, The Mint Chicks, Dave Dobbyn, The Exponents, Mutton Birds, Th'Dudes, Ray Columbus and Blam Blam Blam.
Bright describes the resulting movie as the vision of every creative who worked on it. "The script is just one version. Because it's a much bigger collaboration there are many more variables — the director plays with it, the actors improvise. And then the film editor gets hold of it and tells it another way.
"I'm too close to the work to be able to judge it — and, actually, what I think doesn't matter. So much of it is about how other people respond to the story."
Describing Daffodils as a search for her father — who died in a workplace accident when Bright was 14, "shattering the family" — she says there are a few hidden treats in the movie for family members. Lead actor George Mason, for instance, wears her father's ring, while the travel photos are from her father's slides.
"It makes me feel very honoured and special that they would bother to do that," Bright says. "And I couldn't believe how much like Mum Rose McIver looked when she came out of hair and makeup."
The other main character, played by Kimbra in her acting debut, is the couple's adult daughter who acts as narrator.
Filmed in Raglan, Hamilton, Wellington and Wairarapa, the movie crew had to, at times, re-create parts of Hamilton — including the daffodils — that no longer exist. "It's kind of special as a storyteller to be able to bring that time and the world of a very average working family to the big screen," Bright says.
"I've been very lucky that Mum has been so supportive — I asked her permission from the beginning. I wouldn't be here otherwise. She saw the movie script and gave her blessing.
But Daffodils has always had fiction mixed in with fact so there's an element of distance there too."
Bright's quest to know her father better has had a private spin-off. "I feel like I've been on a good journey to honour him and creating this piece of art for him has brought the family closer. Daffodils has reached out to family members who haven't talked in a long time. It's been a healing process."
Tauranga Arts Festival is showing Daffodils at a 6.30pm fundraising screening at Rialto Cinema on Wednesday, March 27. Tickets are $25 and include a glass of wine and nibbles, available from 6pm. For more info email info@taurangafestival.co.nz or phone 9286213. Tickets available online through Events Pronto. The 2019 Tauranga Arts Festival will take place from October 24 to November 3.
