NZQA BEST ACTRESS – Kaylah Matano of Sancta Maria College for TAIMI!
As an aspiring filmmaker, I decided to get in touch with Poporazzi Productions earlier this year, to find out when the next film festival was. Poporazzi Productions is an organisation that I was aware of for a couple of years, but just didn’t have the confidence to submit anything. So, I decided to take a leap of faith, with some encouragement from my family.
‘Taimi’ (time in Samoan) the name of my film is about a 1st generation kiwi (Lucia), who is raised by a single Samoan mother that migrated to New Zealand. She works 2 jobs tirelessly, trying to raise Lucia in the best way possible. This drives Lucia to work a full-time corporate job when she’s older, so she can give everything her mother wanted to give her when she was young. After working long hours and not spending enough time with her mum, she eventually realises, after a health-scare that her mother faced, that time is more precious than money. Lucia then decides to work from home and spend more time with her mother.
What inspired this film: My mum helped this idea come to life in film. A lot of the inspiration came from my late grandmother which is my mum’s mother. As we were watching the film, we found it amusing how similar my mum’s character was to my grandmother; so we feel we tried to embody that.
I admire the way Poporazzi encourages pacific youth to showcase their stories and talent, so that someday it’ll be shown on the big screens; this festival was and is a great starting point. I encourage other young aspiring filmmakers to put their work out there.
