Whale Rider is a 2002 New Zealand drama film written and directed by Niki Caro. Based on the 1987 novel The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera, the film stars Keisha Castle-Hughes as Kahu Paikea Apirana, a twelve-year-old Māori girl whose ambition is to become the chief of the tribe. Her grandfather believes that this is a role reserved for males only.
Keisha Castle-Hughes is a New Zealand actress. She made her acting debut in the drama film Whale Rider (2002), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the second-youngest nominee in such category. Her subsequent films include the biblical drama film The Nativity Story (2006) and the teen film Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger (2008).
Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler is a New Zealand author. Raised in the small town of Waituhi, he decided to become a writer as a teenager after being convinced that Māori people were ignored or mischaracterised in literature. He was the first Māori writer to publish a collection of short stories, with Pounamu, Pounamu (1972), and the first to publish a novel, with Tangi (1973). After his early works, he took a ten-year break from writing, during which he focused on editing an anthology of Māori writing in English.
Courtney Solomon is a film producer from Toronto, Ontario. He has been involved with production, marketing, and distribution of over 80 movies. In 2000, at the age of 29, he produced and directed the critically panned Dungeons & Dragons film.
Marton Paul Csokas is a New Zealand actor of film, stage, and television. A graduate of the Toi Whakaari drama school, he has worked extensively in Australia and Hollywood, along with his native country, and often portrays villainous roles.
Gaspard Thomas Ulliel was a French actor. He was known for having portrayed the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007), fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent in the biopic Saint Laurent (2014), and for being the face of Chanel men's fragrance Bleu de Chanel for twelve years. He also voiced Jack Frost in the French version of Rise of the Guardians (2012), and portrayed Anton Mogart in the Disney+ miniseries Moon Knight (2022).
Hannibal Rising is a 2007 psychological horror thriller film and the fifth film of the Hannibal Lecter franchise. It is a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Hannibal (2001), and Red Dragon (2002). The film is an adaptation of Thomas Harris' 2006 novel of the same name and tells the story of Lecter's evolution from a vengeful Nazi hunter into a cannibalistic serial killer.
Nikola Jean Caro is a New Zealand film, television, and music video director and screenwriter. Her 2002 film Whale Rider was critically praised and won a number of awards at international film festivals. She directed the 2020 live action version of Disney's Mulan, making her the second female and the second New Zealand director hired by Disney to direct a film budgeted at over $100 million. Caro's works ranged from music videos, commercials, television dramas, and films, etc.
Vera Ann Farmiga is an American actress. Farmiga began her professional acting career on stage in the original Broadway production of Taking Sides (1996). After expanding to television and film, Farmiga's breakthrough came in 2004 with her starring role as a drug addict in the drama Down to the Bone. She received praise for starring in the 2009 comedy-drama Up in the Air, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger is a 2008 Australian independent teen film written and directed by Cathy Randall. It stars Danielle Catanzariti, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Toni Collette. The film follows Jewish 13-year-old Esther (Catanzariti), an outcast at her posh school, where she has no friends. That changes when she meets nonconformist Sunni (Castle-Hughes) from the local public school.
Elizabeth Fiona Knox is a New Zealand writer. She has authored several novels for both adults and teenagers, autobiographical novellas, and a collection of essays. One of her best-known works is The Vintner's Luck (1998), which won several awards, has been published in ten languages, and was made into a film of the same name by Niki Caro in 2009. Knox is also known for her young adult literary fantasy series, Dreamhunter Duet. Her most recent novels are Mortal Fire and Wake, both published in 2013, and The Absolute Book, published in 2019.
The Vintner's Luck is a romantic fantasy novel by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, first published in 1998. It was her fourth full-length novel, and her first book published outside New Zealand. The novel charts the relationship between a French winemaker, Sobran Jodeau, and an angel, Xas, who first visits Jodeau on a midsummer's eve in 1808, when he is 18 years old, and again each year on the same day. The novel won several prestigious awards including the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 1999 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the inaugural Tasmania Pacific Region Prize for best novel. It was adapted into a 2009 film.
Susan Nicole Downey is an American film producer. Until February 2009, she was co-president of Dark Castle Entertainment and executive vice president of production at Silver Pictures, Joel Silver's production company. Susan is married to Robert Downey Jr. The couple has formed their own production house named Team Downey.
Piece of My Heart is a 2009 New Zealand television film starring Keisha Castle-Hughes, Annie Whittle, Emily Barclay, and Rena Owen. It is based on Renee's 1995 novel Does This Make Sense to You?, which focuses on the experiences of unwed teenage mothers in 1960s New Zealand who experienced stigmatisation and the adoption of their babies.
Henry's Crime is a 2010 American romantic comedy crime film directed by Malcolm Venville and starring Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga, and James Caan. The film follows Henry (Reeves), who goes to jail for a bank robbery he did not commit. Once released, he plans to rob the same bank with his former cellmate Max (Caan). The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2010, and was given a limited release in the United States on April 8, 2011.
Taissa Farmiga is an American actress. Her numerous appearances in horror films have established her as a scream queen, alongside her older sister Vera Farmiga.
The 2010 Qantas Film and Television Awards were held on Saturday 18 September at the Civic Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand. The craft awards were presented in a separate awards lunch at the Auckland Town Hall on Friday 17 September. It was the final of the Qantas Film and Television Awards, before Qantas was lost as the naming-rights sponsor and the awards were renamed the Aotearoa Film and Television Awards.
The 2003 New Zealand Film Awards were held on 8 December 2003 in Auckland. After there had been no New Zealand film awards in 2002, previous organiser the New Zealand Academy of Film and Television Arts had originally announced its intention to again host a film awards for 2003, but later withdrew, claiming insufficient sponsorship to stage the awards. However, a group from the film industry, led by the New Zealand Film Commission and government agency New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, raised enough sponsorship to host the awards.
Vera Farmiga is an American actress. She began her career on stage as an understudy in Ronald Harwood's 1996 play Taking Sides on Broadway. The following year, she starred in the Off-Broadway play Second-Hand Smoke (1997) by Mac Wellman. Farmiga made her film debut in the drama-thriller Return to Paradise (1998). She then had supporting roles in the romantic drama film Autumn in New York (2000), the crime drama film The Opportunists (2000), and the action thriller film 15 Minutes (2001). Farmiga's breakthrough role came in 2004, when she was cast in the drama film Down to the Bone. For her performance, she won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Acting and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She then starred in the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (2004) and the crime thriller Running Scared (2006).
