For the first time ever a New Zealand film, Crocodile, by WIFT member and filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly has been selected for the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam Rough Cut Presentation. IDFA is the world’s largest documentary film festival and market, and Crocodile was one of only seven films selected from 170 submissions to present 20 minutes of the film to buyers, funders and film festivals! Pietra and fellow filmmaker and one of the subjects of the film, Raymond Yusuff, will be attending to raise completion finance for their feature film.
A notable shift in film traditional ownership, Pietra has given co-ownership of Crocodile to the subjects of the film, nine young Nigerians initially aged 5 to 18 when filming began in 2019. They are all accredited as the film’s producers and directors. Recently, Pietra was in Nigeria with the team, working on the rough cut.
About the story: Armed with a single mobile phone camera, failing electricity and wild imaginations, Crocodile immerses in the coming-of-age story of nine Nigerian kids who find their voice in scifi filmmaking, setting their lives in the world of 2089. Saturated in Christianity and living in a country with political and economic hardships, predators circle them. But the group talk biblically of their scifi films, and filmed over 10 years Crocodile reveals their wider world view as they stretch beyond their town in the middle of Nigeria.
We wish you and the team all the very best with successful completion of this film!