WE WERE DANGEROUS
New Zealand / 2024 / 82 min / DCP / Comedy Drama

Directed by Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu

Script : Maddie Dai, Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu
Cinematography : Maria Ines Manchego
Editing : Richard Shaw, Hansjörg Weißbrich
Musiq : Cam Ballantyne
Production : Polly Fryer, Morgan Waru

Cast : Erana James, Nathalie Morris, Manaia Hall, Rima Te Wiata, Molly Jarvis-Taylor

Melbourne Festival 2024

In 1954 New Zealand Nellie and Daisy attempt to escape the institution for delinquent girls, however not only are they caught, it triggers a relocation to a facility on a remote island. Then life on the island takes shape under the command of devout Matron. The trio rail against the system, dubious of the benevolence of the bible and taking refuge in their blossoming friendship. However, a sense of doom settles in when experimental forms of punishment take place in the dead of night. Nellie and Daisy plot rebellion.

Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu

Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu (last name pronounced Stewart ‘Teh Few’ (Ngāpuhi/Te Rarawa)) is a New Zealand writer and director of Māori and Pākehā descent. In 2016, she was one of eight Māori women writers on Waru (2017), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Saint-Tropez Antipodes Film Festival. In 2018, she received the NZFC's Māori Screen Excellence Award, alongside her fellow Waru filmmakers. Her short film Ani (2019), which premiered at the Berlinale, has screened at numerous international festivals. Ani has since been acquired by Fox Searchlight Shorts. It was long listed for the Academy Awards Narrative Shorts section in 2020. Her most recent short film, When We Were Kids (2020), won Best Short Film at the NZIFF. Her next feature film, Running Barefoot, was a two-time Sundance Writers Lab shortlisted in 2018 and 2019 and is currently in development. Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu is an alumni of the 2020 TIFF Filmmakers Lab and awarded the Canada Goose Fellowship. We Were Dangerous is her feature debut.