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| All photos by Ryan Makepeace |
A film premiere is a lot like a wedding.
There’s so much excitement about the event – the dress, the venue, the weather
– that it’s easy to forget the reason behind it.
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| Mango the baby rhino having a mud scrub |
And when a film premiere is held at
Australia Zoo, so that between the media call, the book signing and the red carpet, you watch
condors and crocodiles in action, feed kangaroos and elephants, and help to
smear a mud bath onto a baby rhinoceros, it’s even easier to forget that you’re
there to see the film. To see, for the first time, the culmination of five years
of work, crossed fingers, prayers and angst. To be in an audience and
understand whether or not the film works.
So there I was, in my lovely Argyro Gavalas
dress, sitting in front of Russell Crowe and the film’s producer Chris Brown,
with my stomach in knots, waiting for Return to Nim’s Island to begin. How
would I face Bindi Irwin and Toby Wallace afterwards if I didn’t find them
believable? If I thought the film missed the tone the word I created, or was
simply lackluster?
I stopped worrying as soon as the first
images appeared: Nim and Selkie, as I’ve imagined them since I wrote them in
1999. I was swept up in the story
as if I’d never read the script at all. The acting was great; the locations and
settings was amazing, the cinematography was breathtaking; I loved the music;
the audience laughed and gasped in the right places… it all hung together. In
fact, it not only worked, it’s a very good film.
If you don’t believe me, go and see it for
yourself.
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Toby Wallace & I being hugged by elephants
Another day I'll tell you more about the dress, the baby rhino, and walking the red carpet with a wombat. But I've started with the film, because that's what it's all about. |
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It wasn't all too serious
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| Bindi, Toby & friends arriving at red carpet |
I stopped worrying as soon as the first
images appeared: Nim and Selkie, as I’ve imagined them since I wrote them in
1999. I was swept up in the story
as if I’d never read the script at all. The acting was great; the locations and
settings was amazing, the cinematography was breathtaking; I loved the music;
the audience laughed and gasped in the right places… it all hung together. In
fact, it not only worked, it’s a very good film. 
