Films financed by the New Zealand Film Commission achieved unprecedented critical and box office success in the last year.Films financed by the New Zealand Film Commission achieved unprecedented critical and box office success in the last year.One in three New Zealanders saw The World's Fastest Indian, Sione's Wedding or River Queen. Our films contributed over ten percent to the total New Zealand box office take.

The Commission's annual report for 2005-06, tabled in Parliament today, emphasises the value of investing in films with high levels of originality and a distinctive New Zealand voice.

NZFC Chairman, David Cullwick, says the three features and a fourth, No.2, tell Pacific, Maori and Pakeha stories within comedy, historic and local hero genres.

"Audiences here and overseas are responding warmly to the diversity of movies coming from talented filmmakers in this country. This is strong evidence the Commission's cultural focus is generating our best financial results," Mr Cullwick says.

New Zealand cinema audience numbers in 2005-06 were:

The World's Fastest Indian: 741,000
Sione's Wedding: 430,000
River Queen: 105,000
No.2: 78,000

These figures compare with cinema audiences of 185,000 in 2004-05.

Audiences for the films are expected to at least double with DVD release and television screenings.

A record was set with Roger Donaldson's The World's Fastest Indian whose gross box office $7.049 million is the highest amount ever earned by a local film in New Zealand since Once Were Warriors. It also sold to 120 countries, making it one of our international best-sellers.

NZFC films overall enjoyed international success last year. Feature films were selected for 90 screenings at 47 film festivals and special events and short films screened at 105 festivals.

Mr Cullwick says the Commission's challenge is to maintain this momentum.

"New Zealand films are at a critical point in their history when audiences are increasingly regarding them as a 'must see' rather than a 'maybe'.

This level of confidence is reflected in the fact that experienced filmmakers are returning home to tell our stories and new generations of filmmakers are basing themselves here.

The NZFC looks forward to the continuing opportunity to support their work."