This interview with film director Popo Lilo comes courtesy of TAKE Issue no 35 from the NZ Screen Director's Guild. Popo Lilo wrote and directed the short film Tiga e Le Iloa which was selected for Sundance this year.

He is interviewed by Shonagh Lindsay.
This interview with film director Popo Lilo comes courtesy of TAKE Issue no 35 from the NZ Screen Director's Guild. Popo Lilo wrote and directed the short film Tiga e Le Iloa which was selected for Sundance this year.

He is interviewed by Shonagh Lindsay.
SL How did you get into filmmaking?

PL When I was young, it was a big thing me and my cousins to go to the movies. It's not like every day we go, more like once a year when the family's got money. Chuck us all on the bus and we go together. I was in Std 4 when I first went. We went to see Superman 3 and I just freaked.

I always wanted to make films but my family never saw it as a career. I did a bit of extra work on Shortland St. I joined through Show Off when it first came out. I was one of the first Polynesian nurses on the show doing extra work and was walking about in the background. But I was always watching the cameras. I was interested in how it was being made. At night we'd watch TV at home and try and spot me, there I go, there I go. My sisters would say: 'Hey you're only on for two seconds."

I was working at WINZ when I took a feature film idea to Bruce Morrison and William Grieves at Big Picture. It was about the Samoan struggle to take back our lands from Tonga. Not many of our PI generation know that Tonga actually ruled Samoa for a while. I wanted the story to flip from that past to the present of Samoan Tongan gang wars in South Auckland. But they thought it was too violent, and wanted a love interest in it, I didn't want that.

So then I went to Uni cause I thought if I can't get these guys to make my ideas, I'll learn to do them myself. And that's where I met Susie (Pointon) and it all started from there. She liked my idea and said why don't you write a pilot? Experiment with it and see how an audience would take it. So we did. But we changed it and didn't include the past. Suzie wrote while I spoke it, she said just talk to me, talk to me. Then I went away and wrote the script again and we changed it some more together.

I've brought in other themes, like religion and its impact on youth. We explore what happens with the donations how peer pressure makes our people rather give money to the church than pay off their bills. Our parents came to NZ with a very strong belief that church and God are the most important things. And in a lot of ways I agree.

How we like to fight to take our minds off our problems. My upbringing was quite brutal, a lot of discipline with the belt. I was involved in a lot of fighting when I was younger. Some of my mates are still like that, especially if they haven't learnt another way to be. When you get really angry your mind goes black then when you switch back you wonder what's happened.

And how, with us, music is a salvation from church, we love singing and we see that as the most valuable thing about church. That song we close the film off with is a Samoan version of a Pavarotti song. Music is such an important part of our culture. We have choir competitions all around the country every year. When the Samoan Post asked me what influenced me to make films? I said music. It makes me flick back to pictures, for me music is power. I knew the music I wanted to use when I wrote my script and actually wrote it with the music in mind.

SL There hasn't been very many PI feature films made in NZ have there? I can only think of Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree and Sons for the Return Home.

PL Yes, and they were directed by Palangis. The Pacific Media Association emailed me a National Geographic article on whether Whale Rider can be classified as an indigenous film because it was written and directed by a Palangi, but that doesn't take away what Niki has done. I don't think it matters what nationality you are when you direct something it's about the director really doing his research on that culture.

I'm new to all of this, but it was a bit of a battle to get the funding to make my short film. I was very lucky Vanessa Alexander picked it up. It's good to have the PODs choosing the scripts, cause they're creative people, but there's always the danger that they'll just choose their mates. We had lots of meetings with the PODS cause they liked the script, but we couldn't ever seem to make the three that were funded. It took four years, I was working all sorts of jobs and I nearly gave up. I'd decided to apply overseas if I wasn't funded here, either to Hawaii where they give US$40,000 or other areas around the world.

SL How did you get into Sundance?

PL I met Bird Running Water from Sundance when doing post-sound on the film, he was there with Geoff Murphy. He flicked me his card and told me to get in contact with him, so later I emailed him to see if there was any chance of my film getting into Sundance. He said the deadlines were closed but send him a rough cut and he'd see what he could do. And we made it into the Native Forum short film section.

For some reason the Film Commission don't see the Native Forum as the same value as the other sections. They say indigenous film is not done on competition, and they only pay for you to go there if it's in competition. But Bird says every short film that's lucky enough to make the festival is in competition. Taika's short film Two Cars, One Night is in the Native Forum as well.

SL Do you think there's a shortage of PI acting talent in NZ?

PL There's no shortage, but for me in terms of performance, the director has to be the leader. Some directors rely more on actors, but I think the director has to be performance driven.

I spent about four weeks on rehearsing with them, but it was more exploring than rehearsing. Most of those guys had experienced what I wanted in my film so it was a matter of tapping into that and making sure they were on the journey of the main characters in the film. Rather than portray the characters I wanted them to take themselves back and become those characters again.

Joe the singer, my lead, I purposely gave him less dialogue and he comes out strong because of his performance. But he came up to me and said: "Do you know I haven't got that much dialogue? You said I'm the lead. Why's that?" I said performance is more powerful than dialogue in this situation.

SL Did you do any acting in your Unitec training?

PL I don't see myself as an actor. I've got a view that says a good director doesn't need to know about acting but needs to experience life. Like Martin Scorcese, lots of his films are from his experience, he explores his Italian culture. A lot of those great directors talk about their lives when they were young and it comes into form when they're directing and finding their journeys.

Our film was quite large to shoot; it has big scenes in it. When we were shooting in the Otara shopping mall we had this drunk guy come up at about 3 o'clock in the morning when Hamish, a Palangi, was assistant directing. This guy stumbles onto the set and says "You can't effing do stuff about us, you Palangis don't know shit about us."

SL Wasn't he reaffirming what you've said that there aren't enough PI people telling stories your own way?

PL Yeah, we had a struggle with the Otara Council to shoot there. We had to put it across in a way that wasn't too negative. They've worked really hard to bring up its image. But I shot my film there cause it's the heart of Polynesia in NZ, it's all there, you don't have to dress anything. And they've asked that I come back and screen my film to some of the schools down there.

It was also a struggle with my church to film in it. None of them read the script, I just told them it was my take on Samoan religion. It was very funny during one take in our shoot there. My actor who plays the secretary had gone round asking people's names for when he read out the donations and half-way through John our Minister says: "Hey, hey," when the cameras were rolling. "You can't use the names of my congregation." So I says to my actor: "Where's the script I gave you? He says: "I just wanted to make it more real." I wanted to make it as real as I could too so I did let him go with that, but changed the names around a bit.

SL What do you think your church will think when they see your film, will they handle its criticism?

PL I don't know, I guess they'll see it's different from what they might have expected.

I don't want to be classed as just an indigenous filmmaker. I don't class myself as a Samoan director but as a filmmaker. I'm proud of my Pacific Island nationality but I trained in NZ as well, which makes me a filmmaker who just happens to be a Samoan.

I find a director like Peter Jackson really inspiring, how big he thinks in terms of story. We did the Dolby mix in Peter Jackson's main studio, and the guys that did the main sound mix also worked on Lord of Rings, it was amazing to be working on my one short film in this huge studio.

I'm fascinated by story telling in films but I hardly watch TV, I don't like it much. Perhaps because doesn't have the same impact as film because they don't get time to develop the story or work with the actors or have the organic experience you do when making films.

SL You don't think you could learn a lot from making a good television drama series?

PL I've been told that the best way to learn is to watch lots of films and to watch directors as they work. This may sound stubborn, but I don't believe that. I spent three years at school studying. I've got some experience of my craft now and I think if your pre-production work is strong and you know in your mind what you want to do then I don't see why you need to watch.

SL But what about doing a Master Class with a director you admire and learning in a workshop setting?

PL That would interest me more. Sundance run an indigenous film lab where they develop writers. And I'll be taking three scripts - all features - with me to try and push over there.

One of the scripts was given to me by Tony Schuster, it was developed by John O'Shea in the late 70s - early 80s - but never made. It's about a middleweight boxer, world champion, and a real cliché Rocky-type story. I thought just maybe what we could do is rewrite it by changing the boxer to heavyweight and make it an Australasian title. That makes it ours, we don't need to go international, explore his struggle with how he becomes a boxer, which he becomes accidentally. Make it local cause it's more interesting. We're interesting people, believe it or not. Because we have such a diversity of cultures here, it's a matter of bringing those stories out.

I screened the rough cut of my film at the Pacific Media Conference, though I felt film wasn't given as much recognition there as I'd have liked. But at the conference this Indian lady turns round to me and says: " I've seen some of your works before, and I just wanted to ask you a question. How come you're just doing your stuff on Samoans? What if we wanted to do a documentary on our stuff, would you come and work for us?" I replied I am an emerging artist. I've not made any inroads into anywhere. I will look at other work later.

The other ideas I'm taking to Sundance are about a choir competition with a love story, the choirmaster's lead soprano falls in love with him. I want to bring our beautiful choral music to the fore in it as well some of the beautiful fresh faces of our emerging Pacific actors.

And I've got a non-fiction idea about the Samoan tattoo. I like superstitious stuff and it will explore Samoan myths and legends about the tattoo with a horror element. You have to be invited to learn tattooing, my family come from a long line of tattooists and so a lot of the research is on them.