Sima Urale: Making moving stories of Pacific people...

Samoan-born, New Zealand-raised director Sima Urale is our first prominent Samoan female director. Urale has brought touching stories of Pacific people to the screen, often from an NZ outsider’s point of view. Urale credits her film success to determination and dealing with social issues close to her heart.

In this ScreenTalk, Urale talks about:

• Her acclaimed short film O Tamaiti, and thoughts about whether or not to be identified as 'a Samoan filmmaker'

• Resisting feature film offers after the success of O Tamaiti because she didn't think she was ready

• Making her dusky maidens in velvet paintings film Velvet Dreams
• Working on immigrant story Coffee & Allah
• Her strong working relationship with cinematographer Rewa Harre
• Directing the feature film Apron Strings
• Why having worked as an actor helps with directing

This video was first uploaded on 1 November 2008, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann