Producer’s Blog

Writer/director Stephen Sinclair, Stephen Papps, Elena Stejko & Stephanie Tauevihi will be on stage to take questions after the screening.  MC Tarun Mohanbhai one of Those Indian Guys will be MCing on the night.  It will be a great night!

Today the hotest looking flyers on the planet arrived!

April 2011 – Our screening at the Garden State Film Festival went down really well – they said they hadn’t seen enough films like ours lately and really appreciated the art movie elements of our film, so much so that we were awarded Best International Film! Getting the award framed for the office now – you bet!

Russian Snark Wins Best International Film at The Garden State Film Festival

At the end of the month we learned that we had been selected for the Wairoa Maori Film Festival in Gisbourne early June.  Along with another film from the Godzone Pictures stable – Hugh & Heke, it will be screening on Matariki/Queens Birthday weekend at the Nuhaka Marae near the Mahia Peninsula.  We have never been there before so will head down to represent.  Looking forward to getting to that part of the country again as it’s been quite a while.

October 2010 – In a flurry after the film awards in September we learned that we had been officially selected for the Mumbai Film Festival in India.  The Mumbai Film Festival’s jury was led by fellow New Zealander and filmmaking legend Jane Campion (Angel at my Table, The Piano), so it was doubly exciting to be the only NZ film to represent at the festival. What a great opportunity to get in front of a crowd of film officianados! Our friend Claude Dasan (ex Wellington Panavision NZ, & Rubber Monkey) was working in Mumbai and came along to the screening to represent & sent us the catalogue  which was very cool!  We think the poster by Indian Artist Chintan Upadhyay is very cool. 

We were so excited to be at the Carmel Art & Film Festival – attended by Banksy and hosts of others.

September 2010 – 6 x Nominations for Russian Snark at the Qantas NZ Film and TV Awards!

(Check it out!)

And the nominations were:

Best Director – Stephen Sinclair
Best Actor – Stephen Papps
Best Actress – Elena Stejko
Best Supporting Actress – Stephanie Tauevihi (WINNER)
Best Music – David Long and Stephen Gallagher
Best VFX – Park Road Post

Congratulations Everyone!

We had a great weekend. Friday was the Craft Award section with an awards lunch at the Town Hall, and Stephan Gallagher and David Long were up for best Music, as well as Park Road Post who were up for Best VFX.

Saturday Night was the Big Gala, and we hired a limo for the night, arriving on the red carpet in style to the wonderful Civic Theatre. I never imagined when I was on the Save the Civic committee way back in the day that one day one of my films would have such a great reception there.  It was thrilling to have so many nominations for our film and recognition from the selection panel.

When the lovely Stephanie Tauevihi’s name was called as winner in her category, none of us were prepared, and Steph, who had kicked off her shoes did a great acceptance speech barefoot!

http://www.soundonsight.org/tuesday-poster-round-up-2/

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the comments on ne if our earlier Russian Snark Posters. It gets a grade A!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/movies/news/article.cfm?c_id=200&objectid=10665477

We were naturally thrilled to be in official selection for the NZ International Film Festival in Wellington, where we had our official NZ premiere. Stephen Sinclair and I and one of our Russian actors Garry Volk were present for a rocking screening.  The audience stayed on for the Q & A session and was really interested in the ideas behind the film.

The Festival had a huge audience – over 500 at the opening night, and a wonderful party at Squid Row afterwards, sponsored by Russian Standard Vodka and Skazka, the local Russian supermarket. Lots of gaiety and Russian fans attended and we had a wonderful night. Garry Volk one of our Russian actors who played the part of Nikolai came over from Australia for the night and graced us with his ever-elegant presence.

Unfortunately both the leads were working (mostly a good thing!). Stephen Papps was performing in Wellington and Elena was in Romeo and Juliette so similarly neither could not make the premiere. It was great that we had Garry to represent!