Russian Snark up for six awards in Qantas NZ tv and film awards in Auckland Saturday night

The Stephen Sinclair-directed film Russian Snark is up for six awards at the annual Qantas NZ Television and Film awards in Auckland on Saturday night.

 Russian Snark is in line for best director (Sinclair); best actor (Stephen Papps), best actress (Elena Stejko), best supporting actress (Stephanie Tauevihi), best original music (David Long and Stephen Gallagher) and best visual effects (Park Road Post),

Russian Snark was made by Godzone Pictures, a film company owned by Liz DiFiore. Sinclair and DiFiore are joint partners in the sub company Godzone Snark Productions set up to produce the Russian Snark as a standalone project.

DiFiore has worked on over 50 drama productions in her career, mostly for other producers.

Godzone Pictures won the Special Jury Award at the 36th Antalya International Film Festival in Turkey in 1999 (for Playing Possum) and they were nominated for best actress and best script for short film Letters About the Weather (Peter Salmon and Reuben Pollock) at the NZ Film and TV Awards in 2001. Letters About The Weather won the Special Jury Award at Clermont Ferrand in France in 2001.

Di Fiore said lead actor Papps learned how to speak Russian for the role in Russian Snark.

``To Russians, he sounds like a Latvian speaking Russian to which was a pretty good achievement! He was last nominated and won best male performance in the NZ Film and TV Awards in 1992 for the role of Firpo in End of the Golden Weather directed by Ian Mune.

``That film won eight awards that year. Elena Stejko is the first Russian Kiwi to be nominated for an award; she is a beautiful, brave and inspiring actress who brings considerable acting skills to the big screen in the role of Nadia, which was written for her.’’

Russian Snark is an in dependently funded film with very limited public funding - $10,000 for the NZ Film Commission and $25,000for the Screen Innovation Fund. The movie is about a Russian filmmaker who arrives in New Zealand and soon realises his new home is no more receptive to his ideas than Russia. Disillusioned, he steadily descends into madness but he is saved by a young Polynesian woman.

DiFiore said it has been a three-year labour of love, self-funded by her and Sinclair with considerable concessions from cast, crew and suppliers to help make it happen.

``We are currently working on a game for the movie, which we hope to have out in a few months time - to give the audience the opportunity to experience the story on a variety of platforms. Transmedia they call it! We also have a Facebook page and website www.russiansnark.com

``At the moment Stephen and I are planning a hallucinogenic thriller set in the Coromandel with the working title of Distant Fires. I am also working as a contract line producer for a docu-drama called Ice Captain based on Frank Worsley’s diaries at Making Movies. Worsley captained the Endurance on Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic 194-1916 expedition.