This Way of Life: Kiwi Film One Step Closer to Oscars

Press release: This Way of Life
www.cloudsouth.co.nz
November 2010
For immediate release

Kiwi Film One Step Closer to Oscars

A small Kiwi film with a big heart is one of just 15 documentaries in the world to be shortlisted for next year’s Academy Awards.

This Way of Life, which won Best Director (Documentary) and Best Documentary at this year’s Qantas Awards, is an ultra-low budget film made with no crew apart from the filmmakers, Tom and Sumner Burstyn.

Producer Sumner Burstyn is thrilled This Way of Life is so close to receiving an Oscar nomination.

“It’s a rare honor to be in the company of the finest documentaries in the world today. It is also a testament to the openness, candor and honesty of the Karena family.”

The world’s most prestigious film awards now have to select five final nominees, which will be announced in January.

The last time a New Zealand documentary was nominated for an Academy Award was 1976’s Off The Edge, about snowy adventures in the Southern Alps.

Shot over four years against the isolated Ruahine mountains and beautiful Waimarama beach in Hawke’s Bay, This Way of Life follows Peter and Colleen Karena as they raise their six children off the land – a far cry from modern day lifestyles.

The film has already achieved international success, winning a Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, followed by a gushing review in international film bible Variety, which described the film as “A collision of realities - earthly nature vs. human nature” with a “very big heart…catapulting this Kiwi-made story of a Maori family beyond mere portraiture and into a realm of metaphysics, melancholia and cosmic doubt.”
This Way of Life can be purchased in New Zealand on DVD through www.thiswayoflifemovie.com

-ENDS-

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