Tag Archives: Whale Rider

How Actor Cliff Curtis Avoids Playing ‘Repetitive Stereotypes’

How Actor Cliff Curtis Avoids Playing ‘Repetitive Stereotypes’

New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis has played interesting roles over the years. In 1999 he “hit a kind of American cinematic jackpot” with his work on Michael Mann’s The Insider, David O Russell’s Three…

Keisha Castle-Hughes Starring in Game of Thrones Season Five

Keisha Castle-Hughes Starring in Game of Thrones Season Five

  New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes has joined the Game of Thrones cast in the series’ fifth season, which has just kicked off in the US and New Zealand. Castle-Hughes is starring as Obara Sand, one…

Niki Caro’s Latest Feature Hits the Ground Running

Niki Caro’s Latest Feature Hits the Ground Running

New Zealander Niki Caro is the director of McFarland, USA, a Disney film based on the true story of a 1987 cross country team from a predominantly Mexican-American high school starring Kevin Costner. McFarland,…

Keisha Castle-Hughes Picked for Game of Thrones

Keisha Castle-Hughes Picked for Game of Thrones

Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes will join the cast of hit HBO fantasy drama Game of Thrones, starring as Obara Sand, Oberyn’s eldest daughter and a fearsome warrior in her own right. In a video of…

All the World Is a Stage for Paratene in Hamlet

All the World Is a Stage for Paratene in Hamlet

Over the next two years, Rawiri Paratene, actor and environmental activist (best known for his role in the Oscar-nominated film Whale Rider), will play Polonius, Claudius, and other roles in the Shakespeare’s Globe

White Lies | Tuakiri Huna – Theatrical Trailer

White Lies | Tuakiri Huna – Theatrical Trailer

Take a look at this feature film, which follows M?ori medicine woman Paraiti who meets a M?ori servant and is drawn into helping a wealthy P?keh? woman with a…

Fabric Store from NZ a Natural Fit in LA

Fabric Store from NZ a Natural Fit in LA

The Los Angeles location for The Fabric Store, a New Zealand-based business that also has four retail stores in its native country and three in Australia, offers “a more edgy, fashiony focus…

Oscar Foreign-Language Submission a Battle of Wills

Oscar Foreign-Language Submission a Battle of Wills

Based on the novella Medicine Woman by Witi Ihimaera, New Zealand’s 2014 foreign-language Oscar submission, White Lies (Tuakiri Huna) is a period drama about three women drawn together in conflict. David Rooney, reviewer for the…

New American Sci-fi Role

New American Sci-fi Role

Oscar-nominated actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 22, who starred in Niki Caro’s smash hit film Whale Rider, takes the role of Priya in an American sci-fi pilot called Rewind. Castle-Hughes will play a “behavioral anthropologist who…

Caro to Direct Callas

Caro to Direct Callas

Wellington-born film-director Niki Caro will assume writing and directorial duties for Callas, a film about the life of legendary opera star Maria Callas based on Alfonso Signorini’s book Too Proud, Too Fragile, according to…

Trailer: Whale Rider

Trailer: Whale Rider

Laughter in Waihau Bay

Laughter in Waihau Bay

Taika Waititi’s Boy recently won the Best Feature Generation Film award at the International Filmfestspiele in Berlin. The festival’s website describes it by saying  – ” difficult…

Sights on California

Sights on California

Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 19, and her family are in Los Angeles, considering a move to California, but right now “bunking down at a modest hotel in West Hollywood between stints with friends at various…

For the Whales

For the Whales

Actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 19, has joined the Save the Whales Campaign and is urging the New Zealand government to reject Japan’s proposal to resume commercial whaling in its waters before a June 22 International…

Vintner Role for Paikea

Vintner Role for Paikea

New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, has begun filming The Vintner’s Luck, based on Elizabeth Knox’s novel of the same name and directed by Niki Caro. Castle-Hughes told the New Zealand Herald she…

Spotlight on Niki Caro

Spotlight on Niki Caro

North Country director Niki Caro was interviewed before a live studio audience by the Guardian’s Sandra Hebron, alongside the star of her film (and new best mate) Charlize Theron. ” was a script…

North Country

North Country

North Country is Niki Caro’s directorial follow-up to the hugely successful Whale Rider. Set in the iron mining region of north Minnesota, North Country tackles sexual harassment in the workplace…

Martian Rocks get Maori Names

Martian Rocks get Maori Names

The American space agency NASA has given Maori names to rocks on Mars, thanks to the influence of the film Whale Rider. The Mars robotic rover Opportunity is exploring near a cliff named after the late…

Living Legend

Living Legend

Guardian film writer Diana Dobson visits Whangara, home of the Ngati Konohi people and inspiration behind Witi Ihimaera’s Whale Rider. Rather than touring the location made famous by Niki Caro’s film adaptation, Dobson focuses on the local…

Taking Maori Stories to the World

Taking Maori Stories to the World

13 April 2004 – Whale Rider star Rawiri Paratene visited Hawaii in mid-April to discuss cultural themes in the film and NZ as a tourist destination. “Whale Rider has been a boom for Maori filmmakers,” said…

Riding her wave of success

Riding her wave of success

Whale Rider star, Keisha Castle-Hughes, spoke to the New York Post about her week spent in Hollywood prior to the 2004 Academy Awards – for which she was the youngest ever nominee in the…

Another award for the kete

Another award for the kete

Niki Caro’s Whale Rider was named Best International Film at the 2004 IFP Independent Spirit Awards in Los Angeles. The IFP website calls Whale Rider a “radiant story of an exceptional little girl’s…

A delightful upset

A delightful upset

26 January 2004 – Peter Jackson may have been a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination, but the inclusion of first-time thespian Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) in the Best Actress category came as a welcome…

Here’s to you, Ms. Caro

Here’s to you, Ms. Caro

30 November 2003 – Whale Rider director, Niki Caro, was named one of Ms. Magazine‘s women of the year for 2003, alongside Salma Hayek, Eileen Fisher, and Loune Viaud. The US feminist publication recognised…

Winning ways continue for Whale Rider

Winning ways continue for Whale Rider

International plaudits continue to come for Niki Caro’s 2002 hit, Whale Rider. Whale Rider beat Hollywood blockbusters 28 Days Later and The Wild Thornberry‘s to win the feature film category at the 2003 Environmental…

Sideline Action

Sideline Action

With all eyes on Australasia for the Rugby World Cup, an Observer travel feature looks at new attractions on offer in the region. Included is the West Coast’s Wave Watchers Retreat (“a romantic bolthole with great…

Multi-layered myth-making

Multi-layered myth-making

Japan Times review places Niki Caro’s Whale Rider alongside Once Were Warriors and The Piano as one of the pivotal moments in NZ cinema. “…Caro presents myth both as a connection with a…

Ka-Pai

Ka-Pai

Keisha Castle-Hughes continues to win over critics with her star-turn as Pai in Whale Rider. USA Today calls her “the discovery of the summer,” and the Miami Herald hails her performance as “the…

Return of the Native?

Return of the Native?

As Whale Rider premieres in the UK, the Guardian ponders its impact as NZ and Maori cinema, and the cultural factors at play. “longside the celebration in New Zealand’s film industry, there has also…

Sing Bravo Bravo

Sing Bravo Bravo

Whale Rider praise swells in both broadsheet and tabloid reviews on its UK premiere. Daily Telegraph: “Bereft of name actors, supersaturated colours and egregious product placements, it shows us that another kind of…

The many faces of Cliff Curtis

The many faces of Cliff Curtis

Tribune feature on Cliff Curtis tracks his career trajectory from Once Were Warriors to Whale Rider. While the two movies appear vastly different in subject and style, Curtis is quick to point out a…

Mita takes pride of place

Mita takes pride of place

Maori filmmaker Merata Mita was the star guest at Montreal’s 13th First Peoples’ Festival last month – a celebration of the world’s aboriginal cultures. The Cinematheque Quebecoise held a retrospective of her work -…

NYNZ – Ihimaera on

NYNZ – Ihimaera on

Whale Rider author and ex-diplomat to the US Witi Ihimaera interviewed in New York – the city where he penned the story behind the award-winning film. “One morning I woke up to the sound…

Queen of the Castle

Queen of the Castle

Exuding star quality while remaining “refreshingly down-to-earth”, Whale Rider star Keisha Castle-Hughes, feted in the New York Post, The State, and the Seattle Times and is cover-girl in Hawaii’s Weekend Star…

The art of myth-making

The art of myth-making

Whale Rider director Niki Caro speaks to The Age about the intricate cultural process involved in a “white woman” making a Maori film. Despite early resistance to her involvement, and her subsequent self-doubt, Caro…

Whale Raves: Part 2

Whale Raves: Part 2

Whale Rider‘s Australian release has unleashed a second wave of glowing tributes. The Age: ” sharply observed, warm portrayal of a community … of an indigenous people moving between certainties and uncertainties.” Sydney…

Celebrating Kiwi-ness

Celebrating Kiwi-ness

Countless international critics have praised the universal themes explored in Niki Caro’s Whale Rider; what a reviewer for the Age finds most impressive is its quintessential Kiwi-ness. “Whale Rider sounds like it could be…

Whale riding on east (and west) coast

Whale riding on east (and west) coast

NYTimes’ critic Elvis Mitchell praises Niki Caro’s Whale Rider as having the “inspired resonance of found art wickedly absorbing”, and the quiet charisma of actress Keisha Castle-Hughes.The film along with fellow NZ…

Te Maori ki Te Ao – Paratene on Patriarchy

Te Maori ki Te Ao – Paratene on Patriarchy

In an interview with SMH, Whale Rider star Rawiri Paratene discusses patriarchy – both within and outside of Maoridom – and the universal appeal behind the heart and award-winning film. “I think Maori stories well told can…

Local Film; Universal Message

Local Film; Universal Message

Niki Caro’s Whale Rider was the star attraction at the annual Boston International Festival of Women’s Cinema. According to organisers, the “breathtakingly luminous” film perfectly captured the festival’s central theme of “becoming the person…

Crowd Pleaser

Crowd Pleaser

Niki Caro’s Whale Rider continues to charm international viewers, receiving audience awards at both Sundance and Rotterdam. Caro: “As far as I understand, no one’s won at both Toronto and Sundance in the same year…

Sundance Spot For Whale Rider

Sundance Spot For Whale Rider

Fresh from an award-winning stint in Toronto, Niki Caro’s Whale Rider is to feature at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Other entrants in the World Cinema category include Bend It Like Beckham and the latest Dogme instalment,…

Whale of a tale

Whale of a tale

A combination of German and New Zealand investors will finance Whale Rider, the film adaptation of…