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6<br />
Tuesday <strong>January</strong> <strong>31</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>News</strong><br />
NOR’WEST NEWS<br />
Merivale filmmaker follows Muslim skater<br />
• By Georgia O’Connor-Harding<br />
ZAHRA LARI could become<br />
the first figure skater to represent<br />
the United Arab Emirates at the<br />
Winter Olympics.<br />
And a filmmaker who grew<br />
up in Merivale is determined to<br />
capture the skater make history<br />
at next year’s event<br />
in South Korea.<br />
From the<br />
moment filmmaker<br />
Niamh<br />
Peren (left), 27,<br />
stumbled across a<br />
low-quality video<br />
of the Muslim figure skater on<br />
YouTube, she instantly wanted to<br />
know more.<br />
“We became like pen pals for<br />
a little bit and I was like this is<br />
too good of a story. She is on the<br />
cusp of doing something really<br />
big,” Peren said.<br />
The filmmaker secured a week<br />
in February to travel to Abu<br />
Dhabi to create a documentary<br />
about the inspiring skater in her<br />
homeland.<br />
“I think it is a really beautiful<br />
and cinematic notion, an ice<br />
skater that comes from the desert.<br />
Like it is quite a brave sport<br />
to choose . . . the chill of the ice<br />
and the heat of the desert is just<br />
worlds apart,” she said.<br />
Peren, who attended St Margaret’s<br />
College, will travel over<br />
with a small film crew, including<br />
London-based cinema photographer<br />
Jeremy Valender.<br />
Valender, who has shot a range<br />
of work for Burberry, Adidas,<br />
Google and Louis Vuitton, is one<br />
of the big names Peren has built<br />
up in her contact list.<br />
Peren has worked with filmmakers<br />
Jane Campion, Garth<br />
Davis and Jonathan Glazer.<br />
The film crew plans to “get to<br />
know” Lari and her home life by<br />
capturing places such as the rink<br />
she trains in, and the desert she<br />
drives past on the way to training<br />
each day.<br />
“Hopefully, she gets into the<br />
Olympics, which will be the biggest<br />
thing ever and we will go to<br />
South Korea and watch her shred<br />
it,” Peren said.<br />
Peren’s career took off<br />
when she first acted in the<br />
film Blue, which won an award<br />
in the Cannes critics’ week section<br />
of the Cannes Film Festival,<br />
when she was 17. She then started<br />
her own video-making while<br />
studying at the Elam School of<br />
Fine Arts in Auckland.<br />
Recently, Peren was signed to<br />
Blink Productions in London,<br />
which specialises in commercial<br />
and music video production, and<br />
she has since been travelling for<br />
her filmmaking.<br />
Peren and her crew need to<br />
BEHIND THE LENS: Niamh<br />
Peren, who grew up in<br />
Merivale, wants to make a<br />
documentary about United<br />
Arab Emirates ice skater<br />
Zahra Lari.<br />
raise at least $10,000 to under<br />
take the project and have so far<br />
raised about $2540 using Givealittle.<br />
She will be supported by<br />
two film companies.<br />
She said people who make<br />
donations will have their name<br />
presented in the end credits.<br />
“I think it is such an important,<br />
huge and beautiful story.<br />
Seriously, in today’s climate, if<br />
we look at the women’s march, it<br />
is really important to be telling<br />
female stories,” she said.<br />
To support the film, go to https://givealittle.co.nz/project/<br />
niamhperen-documentary
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