![]() It is hard to believe in the same year that also produced Star Wars (1977) that the total output of New Zealand feature films up to that point could be counted on one hand and a couple of fingers. Sleeping Dogs was the cornerstone of the New Zealand film industry. ![]() It was NZ’s second ever science-fiction film – the first feature-length one – with that distinction being held by the now lost A Message from Mars (1903). Of course, Sleeping Dogs introduced two major talents that would go onto great success internationally – actor Sam Neill in his first screen performance and director Roger Donaldson (see below for his other credits). The country’s filmic output is negligible – maybe 3-4 films per year and television production limited to a single teen soap opera Shortland Street (1992– ), plus maybe a sitcom and one dramatic series produced a year.Ĭertainly, for such a minuscule output, the country’s film industry has had some surprising success stories in the international arena – directors like Vincent Ward of The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey (1988) and What Dreams May Come (1988), Peter Jackson of The Lord of the Rings fame, Lee Tamahori of Die Another Day (2002), Jane Campion who made The Piano (1993) and In the Cut (2003), Martin Campbell who made GoldenEye (1995) and Casino Royale (2006), and actors such as Russell Crowe, Lucy Lawless, Kerry Fox, Anna Paquin, Temuera Morrison, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Karl Urban and the late Bruno Lawrence. It is a country that has around the same landmass as the United Kingdom, yet only a population that topped four million in the last decade. ![]()
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