NZ actress attends New York film festival after Best Actress nomination

Auckland actress Rebecca Trelease is visiting America in November after the announcement of her Best Actress nomination in the film Down by the Riverside at the B-Movie Film Festival in New York.The self-financed feature film made in the Waikato has also been nominated for Best Foreign Feature at the alternative movies event, which is described as "a b-movie Academy Awards of sorts for independent filmmakers".

"I'm pretty stoked to be the only non-American actress to be nominated in this category," says Trelease, "and if you look over the past winners and nominations for the eight years that the festival has been running it's been quite an achievement for our film to be included!"

The B-Movie Film Festival has entry criteria of any production whose entertainment and artistic value exceeds the limitations of its budget, a perfect fit for Down By The Riverside.

The no-budget digital feature went into production in October 2005 and was shot in January 2006 in Te Aroha with local sponsorship and volunteer cast and crew. The crew encountered many production problems, delaying the finishing process until July 2007, when the film was picked up by independent distribution company Siren Visual (whose catalogue includes Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles).

Down by the Riverside is described by writer/director Brad Davison as an "independent New Zealand film-noir horror, which tells a story of murder and mystery across two decades", and stars many up-and-coming actors from Hamilton, Te Aroha, Auckland and Wellington.

The film will be in video stores around the country from this November.

1/10/07