In essence, this is the story of his family.
"They say you need, first, to tell stories you know," Schurmann says.
"I had been looking everywhere for inspiration for my first feature film, and finally I realised it had been staring me in the face the whole time."
That inspiration was his little sister, Kat.
As we follow a series of interlocking events in the lives of three families on opposite sides of the world, we come to appreciate the life-changing impact the young teenager has on everyone around her.
Her "little secret", which even she doesn't know about, keeps you guessing till very late in the film and will blow you away.
Schurmann deliberately assembled an international cast and crew (including Brazilian, New Zealand and Irish actors, an Oscar-winning Mexican-German production designer, Peruvian cinematographer, New Zealand producer Emma Slade, and the US-Brazilian composer who wrote the music for the Rio Olympics) to tell his personal story, because he felt it was also universal.
"Chance encounters around the world change lives," he says.
Kiwi Erroll Shand (Underbelly, Outrageous Fortune and many other New Zealand and Australian productions) plays a major role as a New Zealand sailor fleeing from his family and falling in love with a beautiful young Brazilian.
Shand is thrilled that the film, shot in the Amazon, Florianopolis and Auckland, has finally made it to New Zealand screens, calling it a great story, skilfully told, and worth all the hard work it took him to learn some Brazilian Portuguese.
Preceding Little Secret, the tone of the other film, Old Friends (Viejos amigos), could not be more different. A benign and chuckle-inducing film, it begins with three old codgers in their 80s attending the funeral of their mate.
Spurred by their animosity toward the departed's grasping wife, they steal his ashes to take him on one last romp around the neighbourhood. In true comedic style, they are thrust into a series of ever-compounding misadventures and it is obvious that the three lead actors, all legends in the Peruvian acting world, are having a blast.
The small complications and predicaments of growing old are told with humorous authenticity and much gentle self-deprecation.
What adds extra interest to the film is the insight it provides into the passion Peruvians hold for their football teams.
As the trio attend the finals match they have been looking forward to for months and hang out at their old post-match bar, the film becomes, as film critic Ernesto Zelaya Minano says, a tribute to life in Lima's port district of Callao, as well as to its football team, Sport Boys - winners of six national titles, losers in many more, and long-standing rivals of Atletico Chalaco.
With our own sports obsession about to be indulged with the Rugby World Cup, the film is a nice point of comparison, to remember how much you gain from simple pleasures like watching a game, larking around and supporting your mates through thick and thin.
Old Friends screens at 4pm and Little Secret screens at 7pm on Saturday, September 7 at the Davis Lecture Theatre, Whanganui Regional Museum, Watt St. Entry to both films is free; koha appreciated.
