Penny Black Movie Will Rescue Food!
Kiwi feature film Penny Black opens in theatres this month, touring 25 cinemas to raise funds for food rescue charities
across the country.
Penny Black Movie is about high-strung self-centred twenty-something Penny Black (Astra McLaren) who travels down the
North Island in an attempt to save her job and opulent lifestyle. Along the way she meets a guy name Guy (Anton Tennet);
who makes her slow her down and question how the world works.
Similar to the DIY approach of early Peter Jackson, Penny Black commenced filming in 2012 and was largely completed over
weekends with friends and professionals helping out when they could. “The approach to the film was influenced a lot by
1950’s cinema” says director Joe Hitchcock, “so the movie feels like 85 minutes of hanging out with interesting
characters in relatable situations, but we threw in a bit of activism and absurdism to make it more interesting.”
Writer and producer Fiona Jackson says ”The theme of Penny Black is to question the way our society operates, and one of
the issues discussed in the film is the amount of food that gets wasted every day, ending up in landfills. It makes no
sense to us that food is wasted yet people go hungry, and food rescue charities try to correct the balance so we're
thrilled to be able to help out"
The charities that will receive the film-makers part of the box office profit include Kiwi Harvest (Auckland),
Kaivolution (Waikato), Kaibosh (Wellington), 0800 Hungry (Christchurch) and Foodshare (Dunedin), as well as other
smaller charities which benefit the regions they are screening in.
Wellington’s ‘Kaibosh Food Rescue’ General Manager Matt Dagger explains “Penny Black delicately touches upon important
issues of what is a 'want ' and what is a 'need'. It throws a spotlight on the over-consumption and needless waste that
we take for granted in the current food system and makes us all stop and think about the small things that we need to
consider should we be able to bring about meaningful change”
Keepingupwithnz.com described the film as “quirky, eccentric and sometimes just plain weird. But it’s also quite funny,
subtle and typically Kiwi”. The New Zealand tour starts on the 17th of February at The Lido in Hamilton, and will travel
25 New Zealand cinemas over the next month.
ENDS