New Zealand film Whale Rider has won the people's choice award at this month's Toronto International Film Festival.

By Stephen AdamsNew Zealand film Whale Rider has won the people's choice award at this month's Toronto International Film Festival.

By Stephen AdamsThe film, shot in Gisborne, won the award ahead of major release Bend It Like Beckham and US documentary maker Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, and is the first non-Canadian winner.

Based on Witi Ihimaera's novel Paikea, the film is the story of a Maori ancestor who escapes death by riding on the back of a whale, is directed by Memory and Desire's Niki Caro. It stars newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes and established actor Cliff Curtis.

Whale Rider is the first feature film to receive part of its $10 million budget from the Film Commission's $22 million production fund, and will be released in New Zealand later this year.
Other backers are NZ on Air, Germany's ApolloMedia and German regional support fund Filmstiftung NRW.

Here's what The LA Times had to say about the film in its wrap-up of the festival:

There's an extraordinary array of breakout performances by young, unknown actresses too. And the movies they are featured in don't traffic in the usual coming-of-age/sexual awakening cliches. Among them is director Niki Caro's New Zealand-set "Whale Rider," which sneaked up on audiences here as other, bigger films hogged the spotlight.

At both public screenings it played to a standing ovation, prompting New Zealand actor Sam Neill, who was in the second audience, to give a speech of thanks to the filmmakers, which reduced Caro and much of the audience to tears. More tears flowed as the center of the film, 12- year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes, haltingly described what the experience meant to her. She gives what might be described as a quietly heroic performance as a Maori girl who assumes a mythic mantle of leadership over the objections of her traditionally minded grandfather.

Castle-Hughes, who had never acted before, was found by casting director Diana Rowan in an Auckland classroom. "I was being really naughty, passing notes and talking," she says, adding that Rowan took her aside when class was dismissed. "She asked me if I was Maori. Then she asked me if I could swim and open my eyes under water."

For more on the movie, click here.

Pictured above: Keisha Castle-Hughes