03 Magazine: August 04, 2023

Feature | Magazine 33
You were born in Greymouth and lived there for
the first 10 years of your life…
Greymouth is a great home town for a filmmaker. It is
a vivid place. All the blinding white light and dark hills.
My father had a fish ‘n’ chip shop over the road
from the railway station, so all the guards would
come and get some on the turnaround from
Christchurch. In oyster season he always gave them
a 13-oyster dozen. This contributed to my family
being able to travel through the hill for very little.
My first solo journey was on the ‘chuffer’ train to
Christchurch when I was seven, watched over by the
guards. A different world. So, I grew up very much
attached to Ōtautahi.
Went to art school at Ilam in the ’60s.
I’m a Southern maid with a touch of Hawke’s
Bay lurking.
You also lived in Golden Bay…
With my first husband, Andy Dennis, and a dear
friend, we bought a beautiful little property in East
Tākaka with springs and rampant Californian thistles
flowing through.
I would pack the car and head over there as often
as I could when my daughter was young. It was my
retreat into a very sociable and clever population.
Many friends came and went over the 13 years we
were there – Toby Laing and most of Fat Freddy’s
[Drop], Bret McKenzie and Hannah Clarke, Laurie
Foon and her family, heaps of Bollingers…
Age Pryor and Justin Firefly Clarke came over
with musician friends one year and they wrote and
recorded The Woolshed Sessions there.
You are only ever the guardian of any land you
inhabit. I treasure those friendships I made during
that time.
“All the themes that Bread and Roses
illuminates are even more relevant than
they were when we made the film.”
Do you get back to either/both region/s much, and
if so, what are some favourite spots?
Black’s Point near Reefton is where I perch most
Christmases in the Bollinger/Crayford compound.
I have a little teardrop caravan nestled under their
veranda. We bathe in the mighty Inangahua River
and the extended families hang out and eat from the
extensive gardens planted by Helen and Alun.
Reefton Main Street op-shops are my favourite in
the world.
I love Tukurua and Milnthorpe in Golden Bay, but I
don’t want to say where. A well-kept secret. Dear old
friends there.
The remarkable Sonja Davies, who Bread and Roses
is about, lived in Nelson for some years, how much
of the film is set there?
Most of the second half of Bread and Roses happens
in Māpua and around Nelson.