A Small Life

Little known in its homeland, but an award-winner overseas, director Michael Heath's tragic portrait of mother and child confronts "intense emotion without flinching" (as Lawrence McDonald wrote). Largely bypassing dialogue in favour of a more elemental approach, the filmmakers combine sound and song (courtesy of composer David Downes and singer Mahinārangi Tocker) with lyrical imagery of the family revelling in their rural backblock (shot by Stephen Latty). There is added poignancy in the fact that Tocker — playing the mother who loses her boy — herself passed away in 2008.

We could not have made this film, this way, without the freedom given to us by the Screen Innovation Production Fund. We hope this film is a unique vision of our own culture, our own country, our own landscape.

– Writer/Director Michael Heath

Key Cast & Crew

Mahinārangi Tocker

As: Ana

David Downes

Visual Effects, Sound, Editor, Composer

Stephen Latty

Producer, Cinematographer

Michael Heath

Writer, Director

Kelly Leader-Tropman

As: Tama

Hera Dunleavy

As: Social Worker