Hopes ride high for movie filmed in Wanganui

A movie about teenage talent and love - filmed in Sydney and Wanganui by a  local director - is now being edited in a house on Putiki Drive.
Butterfly Crush is likely to screen in the city in October.
It's the story of two wannabe teen music stars who become embroiled in the mysterious Dreamguides cult in Sydney. The cult involves astrology, open relationships and computer-assisted dreaming.
Their attempts to leave are complicated by one of them falling in love with a young man from the cult.
The film's director, Alan Clay, returned to his Wanganui home in 2005. In 2006 he made his first film, Moontan, from one of his novels. And he intends to translate each of the others in turn into movies.
The 90-minute self-financed feature film Butterfly Crush was shot in 2009.
Its five main actors were from Wellington, Brisbane and Sydney, and there were many Wanganui extras used  for indoor scenes filmed in the city. The Sydney scenes were  shot in November and December.
Editing was now being done by Anand Doshi, who hails from  Melbourne and Mumbai.
Mr Clay said the film was looking good, and teenagers who had seen it had loved it. It already had a 400-strong internet fan base.
The finished film would be submitted for showing at the New Zealand International, Melbourne, Sydney and Cannes film festivals in the middle of the year.
The Cannes Film Festival in May was unlikely to choose it, but Mr Clay would pay for it to be shown to distributors and agents there.
Its premier screening would likely be in Sydney, where it had many fans, in early June.
Wanganui's chance to see it would probably happen during the late September-early October school holidays, perhaps through the film being taken up and distributed commercially.
If it wasn't, Mr Clay said he would book theatres and promote it himself.
His next film is to be based on his novel Believers in Love.
"It's going to be my big family movie, about young people finding their way through the illusions of the music industry and online
 reality."
For more information about the Dreamguides cult, see www.dreamguides.net