Toa Fraser

Who Is Toa? The son of a British mother and Fijian father, Fraser was born in London in He moved to Auckland with his family in On graduation from the University of Auckland, he became a playwright. Toa Started off as a playwright and grabbed attention with his award winning play N0.2 which he then turned it into a Film. He has continued writing and directing films.

How did he get into Film? After becoming a playwright he picked up awards for Best New Play (for Bare) and Best New Playwright in the 1998 Chapman Tripp theatre awards. In 1999 he won the Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Award. (Playwriting award recognises achievement by a playwright at the beginning of a career) It was Fraser's second play, No.2 (1999), winning the Festival First Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in His success in Script Writing is the reason Film.

“I always wanted to do it. I always felt I fell into writing plays kind of by accident. As you know, Bare was really inspired by movies. I wrote the play No. 2 with the aim of directing it as a feature. Some of my earliest memories are about movies, going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark with my Nanna, who was a big movie fan. She loved Raiders because it harked back to that era of movies that she grew up with.”

First Film Work. In 2000, Fraser worked for a year with director Vincent Ward on the screenplay for River Queen, but his involvement ended at an early draft of the film. Of the experience, Fraser said, "It was really intense, a real challenge to work with someone of Vincent's level of expertise and commitment. He works very, very hard."

In 2001, Fraser was awarded the University of South Pacific's Writer in Residence Fellowship. Whilst in Fiji, he began work on the film adaptation of No.2. Fraser had never directed a play or film before, but he was determined to direct No.2, and his decision paid off. When the movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, it won the Audience Award (World Cinema Dramatic) and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The film was selected for the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival, and won the Audience award at the Brisbane International Film Festival.

In 2008, Fraser directed his multi award- winning second feature, Dean Spanley. Dean Spanley was nominated for 12 awards at the 2009 Qantas Film and Television Awards. It went on to win seven, including Fraser for best director, best film costing more than $1 million, best screenplay, and best supporting actor (Peter O'Toole).

Filmography

Directed by Vincent Ward Produced by Chris Auty Written by Vincent Ward and Toa Fraser Starring: Samantha Morton Kiefer Sutherland Cliff Curtis Temuera Morrison Anton Lesser Music by Karl Jenkins Distributed by 20th Century Fox Release date(s)2005 Running time114 minutes BudgetNZ$24,030,000 Box office$915,442 RIVER QUEEN

Production Companies Silverscreen Films Film Consortium, The Endgame Entertainment Film Consortium Invicta Capital New Zealand Film Commission New Zealand Film Production Fund UK Film Council Distributors Works UK Distribution, The (2008) (UK) (theatrical) Acteurs Auteurs Associés (AAA) (2007) (France) (DVD) Capelight Pictures (2007) (Germany) (DVD) Front Row Filmed Entertainment (2006) (United Arab Emirates) (all media) (Middle East) Future Film (2008) (Finland) (DVD) Midget Entertainment (2008) (Denmark) (all media) Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (2006) (New Zealand) (all media) Universal Home Entertainment (2008) (UK) (DVD) Weinstein Company, The (2008) (USA) (DVD) Works, The (2006) (worldwide) (all media) (sales)

No.2 Directed by Toa Fraser Produced by Tim Bevan,Philippa Campbell Written by Toa Fraser Starring: Ruby Dee Mia Blake Rene Naufahu Release date(s)2006 Running time 96 minutes BudgetNZ NZ$10,000,000

Production Companies Numero Films Ltd. NZFC Distributors Cyan Pictures (2007) (USA) (theatrical) Impacto Cine (2006) (Argentina) (theatrical) Miramax Films (2006) (USA) (theatrical) Cyan Pictures (2006) (USA) (all media) Future Film (2007) (Finland) (DVD)

Dean Spanley Directed byToa Fraser Produced byMatthew Metcalfe Alan Harris Screenplay byAlan Sharp Based onMy Talks with Dean Spanley by Lord Dunsany StarringJeremy Northam Peter O'Toole Sam Neill Bryan Brown Judy Parfitt Dudley Sutton Music byDon McGlashan CinematographyLeon Narbey Editing byChris Plummer Distributed byMiramax Films Release date(s)6 September 200Toronto International Film Festival 8() 12 December 2008(United Kingdom) 26 February 2009 (New Zealand) Running time100 minutes CountryNew Zealand United Kingdom LanguageEnglish Budget$15 million

Production Companies New Zealand Film Commission (presents) Atlantic Film Productions General Film Corporation Lipsync Productions (in association with) Distributors Miramax Films (2009) (USA) (theatrical) Alliance Films (2009) (Canada) (DVD) Entertainment One Benelux (2011) (Netherlands) (DVD) Pan Vision (2009) (Sweden) (DVD) Pan Vision (2009) (Sweden) (DVD) (Blu-ray) SP Films (2012) (Argentina) (DVD) SP Films (2012) (Argentina) (all media) Transmission (2008) (Australia) (all media) Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (201?) (USA) (DVD) Special Effects Lip Sync Post (visual effects)

Film Style & Theme? Toa Started off telling stories about New Zealand and Pacific Islands to more international stories “I'm a storyteller, I want to tell stories about all kinds of people, from all over the world. Also as a Pacific storyteller, I feel it's important that we don't let others pigeonhole us. Bare, No. 2, Dean Spanley, they all have in common the idea of connection, across suburbs, national boundaries, generations, emotional barriers... It's what I do, I connect.”

Film Projects. Writing the script A Film based off "The Beach of Falesá" is a short story by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. (Same orignal Writer as Dean Spanley. He was asked to come on board as the director.Robert Louis Stevenson “This project represents a unique opportunity [for a Pacific writer]," says Fraser. "It is a story primarily about European traders, and yet Stevenson's writing offers a sharp criticism of British colonialism in the Pacific. As a young Pacific storyteller, I am excited about the opportunity to wrestle ownership of this Pacific story back from the imagination of the esteemed European storytellers who have gone before me on this project.”

Significance or Impact. Toa is Writing,creating, directing or adapting stories into his own content making his mark as a New Zealander. He’s also a successful writer who has taken his stories international and brought audiences and stories back to New Zealand with him. It's so easy to feel isolated in New Zealand, as if no one else in the world is watching - but Toa reckons the opposite is now true.

awarded-pacific-writer-s-residency-for-robert-louis- stevenson-film awarded-pacific-writer-s-residency-for-robert-louis- stevenson-film ep/60230-cultural-storytellers-toa-fraser ep/60230-cultural-storytellers-toa-fraser