NZ Herald

By John Drinnan

5:30 AM Friday Oct 21, 2011

The Insatiable Moon with Rawiri Paratene and Sara Wiseman was made for just $350,000

MOONDANCE

District Court Judge Rosemary Riddell made her feature film debut as director of The Insatiable Moon which has several finalists in this year’s AFTA film awards.

The film about a Ponsonby half-way-house – largely shot around the Three Lamps area – was a small but uplifting movie made on a shoestring.

Judge Riddell knows her way around drama and was once an actor for Downstage Theatre. She also made an award-winning short film. But it was a big step up. The judicial input was just one intriguing factor in the way this story made it to cinema screens in Britain and New Zealand, appearing on the Rialto channel and on DVD.

Judge Riddell is the partner of producer Mike Riddell and stepped into the breach when talks fell apart with the New Zealand Film Commission, which had planned to fund the movie. The Insatiable Moon was to have had a Scottish director, and British stars. Timothy Spall was to play the owner of the half-way house and James Nesbitt the local minister. The original budget was about $6 million, which is very small by international standards but respectable in this country. But in the end it was made for just $350,000.

Producer Mike Riddell said the film commission (under a previous regime) kept changing its mind about what it wanted from The Insatiable Moon. Commission staff obliged to look for box office returns didn’t like the idea of a movie about psychiatric patients. It wanted to emphasise the religious aspect, and then to give a bigger role to a woman TV reporter, he said, to the point that funding was withdrawn. But producers who believed in the idea and local investors made the movie on their own terms and with a good outcome.

Riddell acknowledged the film commission is between a rock and a hard place, with obligations to make New Zealand movies that have the ingredients for box office success.

INDEPENDENT

Insatiable Moon is represented in six film categories for the AFTA awards. They are: Best lead actor, Rawiri Paratene; best lead actress, Sara Wiseman: best supporting actor, Greg Johnson; best supporting actress, Teresa Woodham; best screenplay, Mike Riddell, and best original music, Neville Copland.

By their nature, awards should be on the creative product. I’m in no position to judge the movie against other contenders. But amidst the plethora of awards there should be one for independent spirit – being creative without a handout.

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