The words are hustling out of my mouth as fast as my feet are moving along the footpath in Cannes. 

“Thriller.”  Jog, jog.  “Near-dystopian.” Slight stumble. “State euthanasia.”   Thank goodness I’m wearing sneakers.  It’s my first time walking and talking - or jogging and pitching as the case may be. But I have to get this right.  We need a sales agent for our first feature film.  

This is the Cannes Film Festival debut for Avesta films, the company I have formed with my creative partner Makez Rikweda.  We’ve flown across the English Channel from our base in London to meet, greet and hustle. 

In between the meetings we see Tom Cruise arrive.  Pedro Pascal is trying to protect Emily Stone from a bee on the red carpet.  We grab yet another coffee and head into the Marche Du Film, which is the business side of the festival.  

Genre films are creating the buzz right now and despite this being our first feature script, the concept is getting a lot of interest. 

A thriller with sci-fi elements, it’s set in a dystopian near-future where being broke gets you euthanised.  Makez took inspiration from the right to die debate going on around the world and we can see it’s resonating with the sales agents.  

Our journey to this point has followed the playbook so far, although we didn’t start in our 20s. 

After many years in broadcast TV, making current affairs, documentaries and a stint for me as the TVNZ Europe correspondent, we found ourselves working for the same company in London. We find each other very funny.  Humour is vital to survive this business, and so is a partner who has your back.  

Mak wanted to make short films so during the COVID lockdown, she wrote two scripts which we made together and then I wrote a comedy which I directed and we produced.  It’s three years and 2 weeks since I yelled, “That’s a wrap.”  It’s important to have had success in short films and our second short Fat Girl got into BAFTA and Oscar qualifying festivals, and had 100,000 views within its first 24 hours on TikTok.  Every agent wanted to see the film.  

We didn’t want to spend years making shorts though and when Mak came up with the idea for 7 Minutes Till I Die, we decided we’d jump right in and take it to Cannes.  

When a sales agent comes on board with a filmmaker, the journey can take years so you need to be on the same page and like each other. It’s not easy to form a bond like that via a zoom call. 

We knew face to face meetings would be key and we backed ourselves to make an impression.

We secured 14 meetings with a combination of New Zealand Film Commission hook-ups and an email reach out to genre sales agents. There’s no doubt the respect the world has for NZ film industry helped us. But it was up to us to nail the pitch. 

All loved the concept and the sizzler we’d shot.  Some were only interested in joining us when we had a cast, others wanted the money in place. In our first meeting we chatted for ages, even talked about the dogs he owned!  We were pleased and surprised but that was wiped away in the next chat when we faced a sales agent who must play a lot of poker.  

Many people were surprised we secured as many meetings as we did so they’ll be amazed to hear that since Cannes, we’ve had an offer from one sales agent, 2-3 co-production offers and companies chasing us for the script. Right now, we’re waiting for one particularly big fish to come back and bite.

Meanwhile, the hustle continues, searching for collaborators and financiers.  If it’s not for this film, it may pay off for the next script we’re working on. 

We’d love to work with people in the NZ industry so please follow our journey and get involved. As the old saying goes, it’s not (always) what you know, it’s who you know.