The Dark Horse is officially New Zealand's movie of the year.
It swept most of the the major categories at last night's NZ Film Awards, winning the best picture, the director and screenplay prizes for James Napier-Robertson, as well as taking away best actor for Cliff Curtis and best supportingactor for James Rolleston.
The acclaimed film, a dramatisation of an episode in the life of bipolar Gisborne chess champ Genesis Potini, took out six categories including best score from its 13 nominations.
Curtis went into last night's awards already a winner. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards named him best actor at a ceremony in Brisbane on Thursday night for his Dark Horse performance.
With 14 nods, the most nominated film at the NZ Awards - or Moas - had been te reo action movie The Dead Lands but it only managed a showing in the technical categories of best visual effects, costume and makeup.
The year's biggest local box office hit, the Taika Waititi-Jemaine Clement horror comedy What We Do In the Shadows, won the best self-funded movie category having missed out on best film consideration.
But its budget didn't stop it taking away the production design and sound prizes, with Jackie van Beek winning the supporting actress prize.
Dominating the documentary categories was Hip Hop-eration, the film about a group of break-dancing senior citizens, which won three out of its four categories including best doco.
