Snow Country for Cold Elves

48Hours film Snow Country for Cold Elves subverts its assigned genre of Christmas film with machine guns, fight scenes and exploitation. The combination of the dark plotline with a children's story delivers full shock and comedy value. Auckland-based filmmaker Hweiling Ow wrote, directed and stars as an elf on a mission. She is joined by two frequent collaborators, cinematographer/producer Peter Haynes and composer Luke Fitzgerald — the trio also all worked on the web-series Ao-terror-oa, which was released the same year. The short film got to the National Finals of the 48Hours competition in 2017.

This was the year that we punished teams with the Christmas Movie genre, which was decided on by social media vote. The team offered a fresh take on the family-friendly genre, by creating a dark twisted world with a sweatshop for elves...

– 48Hours national managers Ruth Korver and Ness Patea on why this is one of their favourite 48Hours films

Key Cast & Crew

Hweiling Ow

Director, Writer, Producer, As: Runaway elf

Peter Haynes

Producer, Cinematographer

Dallas Barnett

As: Santa , As: Narrator

Luke Fitzgerald

Composer