Unitec filmmakers get Jackson and del Toro wildcard

Two Unitec graduates are in line to pick up the Grand Champion award for the 48Hours Furious Filmmaking Competition thanks to a little influence from Hollywood.

Academy Award winning Kiwi director Peter Jackson and another well known Hollywood director, Guillermo del Toro, were given the task of selecting three ‘wildcard’ short films to join the five city winners in line to win this year’s supreme award.

Amongst the three films selected by Jackson and del Toro was a production involving two Unitec Performing and Screen Arts graduates, Alan Parr and Venusi (Junior) Taumoepeau.

Both are graduates of the Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts programme - Parr majoring in directing and Taumoepeau in camera.

Parr was more than surprised when he found out his production group, Team IdiotVision, and their short film, ‘The Revenger’, made the final cut.

“To make the final eight is an incredible feat in itself, particularly with some of the films produced this year, but to have Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro select our film as one of their three wildcards is just brilliant,” says Parr.

He says his crew did not have any expectations this year despite being a veteran of six 48Hours competitions and making the city finals twice already.

Parr’s group includes Taumoepeau, a new member of the team, and original members Toby Sharpe, Ben Christie, Simon Ward, and Kelly Newland.

“This year, we were a little bit apprehensive as we lost a major member in Elliot McKee who is now in Ireland so we didn’t really know how it would work out this year with Elliot being an integral part of the team.

“But I managed to bring Venusi on board and he was just amazing. I’ve done quite a bit of work with Venusi so I knew with his personality he’d fit in really well, and he did.”

Their short film The Revenger is a hilarious take on a home consumer revenge kit, something that both Parr and Taumoepeau have some experience with.

“Venusi and I have been doing quite a few corporate videos since we graduated from Unitec so when it came to finding ideas around the ‘revenge’ genre that we were given, we thought it would be good to use that in our film.”

And it seems to have worked, with Jackson and del Toro impressed enough to name it one of their three wildcards amongst hundreds of entries.

The Grand Champion of this year’s 48HOURS Furious Filmmaking competition will be chosen by a judging panel that includes well known Kiwi actors Cliff Curtis and Karl Urban, Academy Award nominated director Taika Waititi, and twenty international judges.

Each of the nine finalists will have their film screened on C4 (from this week at 11pm), leading up to the winning announcement on June 20. A total of 30 films will be shown throughout this period with The Revenger to screen on June 19.

The Revenger is joined by the other two wildcard films, It’s Like Being Back in Primary School, and Fanatics, both from Auckland.

The other six finalists are the city winners, Natures Baby (Auckland), Hardwood Floors (Hamilton), The Amazing World of Sticks (Gisborne, Tairawhiti), Otack Otack Otack from Wellington, New Fish from Christchurch, and Dunedin production Charlotte.