Movie planned for Te Puke

Media briefing for Z Nail Gang movie. Te Puke Memorial Hall. L-R Anton Steel and Kylie DellaBarca Steel

Te Puke's Capitol Theatre will host its first ever world-wide movie premier later this year when Pukehina-based movie the Z Nail Gang opens to audiences.

The choice of Capitol Theatre for the red carpet event was announced today by the film's makers Anton and Kylie DellaBarca Steel at a press conference in Te Puke.

The Pukehina couple are galvanising their community into helping them make a movie based on the mining protests that took place in the Coromandel 20 years ago.

Described as a feel-good action comedy with a conscience, the timing could not be better since off-shore drilling has sparked a new wave of protests by environmentalists.

The making of the film will draw heavily on volunteers and even the professional actors will not be charging for their services. Instead the key actors which include Tanya Horo, Geoff Dolan and Paul Barrett will gamble that the film ends up making a profit from which they can then take their fees based on a points system.

Mr Steel said most New Zealand films ended up not making money. It will be the first feature film in which he was the sole director.

They are aiming to have the film finished in time for the International New Zealand Film Festival in July, with a general cinema release several months later.

The couple were introduced by Mark Boyle of Te Puke's economic development organisation Te Puke EDG. ``We are very proud that the movie is being produced here.''

He said the Z Nail Gang was bringing the community together and enabling people to deliver resources and infrastructure necessary to get the film made, fitting in with Te Puke EDG's new brand "Goodness Grows Here''.

The film is being made on a shoestring with a lot of inventive thinking going on to reduce the original $50,000 budget still further. About $30,000 had been earmarked for catering and transport costs.

Today was also the official opening of the "boosted'' campaign in which people can go onto the Boosted website to donate money to help make the film. They were hoping to raise $10,000 through Boosted.

Mr Steel said the idea was that although people would volunteer their time, no one should be left out of pocket for helping to make the movie.

He introduced the volunteers that had already been signed up for jobs that included the art department and vehicles, casting and extras, and catering and sustainable resources. The catering managers Rachel Brodie and Mary Charrington spent yesterday going around op shops collecting 105 pieces of crockery _ saving on buying paper plates.

Mr Steel, who spent five years writing the script, said they were departing from the conventional model for film making.

Unbelievably crazy events that actually happened in the Coromandel mining protests in the 1980s and 1990s will be threaded into the film about how a small coastal town rallied together when a mining company threatened their homes and environment.