'Whale Rider' beguiles influential US audience

Another New Zealand movie may be ready to break into the big time in America.

Witi Ihimaera's Whale Rider, the story of a Maori girl dealing with the pressures of her culture in a changing world, has received a huge response in a private, invitation-only screening to influential senior executives, editors and writers from the tourism industry in New York this past weekend.

The guest list included the CBS Early show, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic, and the Today Show, which had a combined viewer potential of hundreds of millions.

The movie received rave responses, said Tourism Minister Mark Burton, who attended the preview.

"We know it is a great movie. Because it is such a New Zealand story and very much in the style of our rural New Zealand ... whether that would make the transition to New York City and the United States. Well, it did," he said in Los Angeles after flying through the night to formally open a tourism convention for North American travel agents and wholesalers.

"The wonderful thing about it was the extent that it easily made that step across."

Writer Ihimaera, who wrote the story in New York, was also at the screening and Burton said there were few dry handkerchiefs in the theatre after the screening and everyone came out raving about the movie

He said it was unusual for an audience to stay after a movie preview, but no one left early after Whale Rider.

"The prospects for this film are enormous and what enthuses me is that it comes at a time when the Lord of the Rings has been and continues to be a massive success and has raised the profile of New Zealand in ways we couldn't have imagined. That is about the backdrop of New Zealand, the scenery. It is about the technical brilliance of the movie and all that.

"This [Whale Rider] is a story of New Zealand and about New Zealand and that cultural connection is really important," Ihimaera said.

The way the audience responded to the cultural value of the movie was impressive, he said. The movie was a "wonderful" vehicle for tourism.

"It shows parts of New Zealand that are in their own way absolutely wonderful and beautiful. But it also tells people more about Maori culture, New Zealand society and some of the values that out country is built on."

Simone Flight, Tourism New Zealand's public relations manager for America and Canada, said the movie was being distributed in America by Newmarket Films which had distributed other big movies hits in America including My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Real Women Have Curves.

"Whale Rider's association with Newmarket has been fantastic for the makers of Whale Rider because Newmarket has the kudos right now for picking winners."

The movie is due to open in Los Angeles and New York on June 6 and by the end of June will open in a further 15 cities across America.

Burton was in America to open a tourism convention hosted in Los Angeles by Tourism New Zealand for North American travel agents and wholesalers who specialise in selling holidays to New Zealand.

The movie has also been supported by Qantas Airways which has supplied tickets for the cast to America for the premiere in Los Angeles later this month and in New York next month.

Tourism New Zealand has also funded some of the cost of the premieres in both American cities.

- NZPA