Strength of Water, The

Aroview: Ten-year-old twins are separated by tragedy in this evocative, gracefully shot debut for dir. Ballantyne, set in a Maori community on the remote West Coast of the South Island.

The strength of the weathered landscape makes an impression above the characterizations, and it offers a relatively detached experience for a film that earnestly deals with child mortality, yet pre-eminent scribe Briar Grace-Smith is always thematically ambitious and doesn't settle for pat resolutions. In attesting Maori values in an isolated community, the film could be seen as a 'sister' film to the box-office hit, BOY.

NZ International Film Festival 2009

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