Bringing Mere Home to screen NZIFF

By Chris Valli

Blenheim videographer and filmmaker Keelan Walker’s short film Br inging Mere Home has been selected to screen at the New Zealand International Film Festival. The film festival is held annually and this year will be starting in Auckland on Wednesday, July 19 - Sunday, August 6. Known in the industry as the ‘pinnacle of film festivals’, previous recipients include director Taika Waititi who has gone on to receive Academy, Bafta and Grammy awards.

Shot in Marlborough last year, the short story is set in a small New Zealand community during the 1980s. The protagonist, Billy (played by Frederick Pokai), is driving home from one of his regular Sunday pub sessions when he comes across a mysterious young girl named Mere (played by Isis Bradley-Kiwi), stranded on the side of the road.

Sensing that something is amiss, Billy stops to offer Mere a ride home. Little does he know that his decision to help her will lead to a dramatic turn of events.

Keelan started his filmmaking journey in 2014. Of Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne, Ngāti Apa, Ngati Koata and Ngai Tahu descent, his first foray into filmmaking was for the Tōtaranui 250 Trust as a photographer and videographer in the build up to Tuia 250 (commemorating 250 years in 2019 since the first onshore meetings between Māori – and Pākehā in 1769–70. Tuia 250 also celebrated the voyaging heritage of Pacific people that led to the settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand many generations before).

The idea for Bringing Mere Home originated when, as an 11-year old, he would bike up with his friends to the rubbish dump (where the refuse centre currently is) searching for ‘taonga’ (treasure).

“One year I found a 45 record player which had a stack of records with it,” he says. “There was a record I took back to my Grandads, we would play it and turn the lights off because it was spooky, a country and western number by Red Sovine called Bringing Mary Home.”

“The story of the film is the same story in the song but we customised it to a small New Zealand rural setting.”

Keelan reflects as a filmmaker it’s always handy to bank small ideas which could come to fruition.

Bringing Mere Home is a good example of this.

“About four weeks out from the Top of the South Film Festival, I said to Tyler (Redmond) let’s enter something. I’ve got an idea of an old song when I was a kid. We rang Fred Pokai, a friend of ours in Wellington and said, what you think of this? Five hours later he had the basics of a script.”

Keelan recalls going along with his father to the Grovetown pub on a Sunday which was ‘often cranking’ and provided the context and stimuli for the narrative.

“Driving home back then wasn’t a big deal. I thought if you’re going to have a good storyline you need a good message,” he says. “The statistics at the end of the film are quite shocking with regards to drunk driving or speeding.” He says the selection of the film is undoubtedly a ‘career move’. However he admits he has to take small