In rural New Zealand, a fifteen-year-old girl fights to keep her place among the pack of boys she has grown up with. As day turns to night, she falls into a power game with the pack's alpha - but it is the wrestle within herself that proves to be her hardest challenge.

Pack Rat was a recipient of the New Zealand Film Commissions highly competitive He Kauahi Catalyst grant. The film is currently on its international festival run, having already screened at five Oscar®-qualifying festivals. Pack Rat has received recognition for both its writing and cinematography, winning Best Screenplay at the Oscar®-qualifying Show Me Shorts Film Festival and GOLD at the Australian Cinematographers Society Awards.

Short Film | Narrative | Drama | 18 minutes | 1.85:1 | Colour | 2024

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Pack Rat was inspired by my adolescence growing up in the rural Far North of Aotearoa New Zealand. These remembrances and experiences served as the basis for Pack Rat's story, narrative, and characters. Like the protagonist, I was very close to a group of boys yet I was also kept slightly on the outside of their pack. In this position I found danger and freedom, loneliness and love. Pack Rat is a nostalgic and cathartic love/hate letter to this time in my life — a beautifully messy, awkward, insecure age, negotiating power, belonging and acceptance.

AWARDS
Australian Cinematographers Society Awards - GOLD, Short Film
Show Me Shorts Film Festival - Best Screenplay

FESTIVALS
North America
Atlanta Film Festival
Dallas International Film Festival
RiverRun International Film Festival
South America
Festival Curta Cinema - Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival
Oceania
Show Me Shorts Film Festival

TEAM

In Association with THE NEW ZEALAND FILM COMMISSION

Producer JOHNNY LYON
Casting Director STU TURNER, CATCH CASTING
Cinematographer RYAN ALEXANDER LLOYD
Production Designer GLENN BLOMFIELD

PARK ROAD POST PRODUCTION
Sound Effects Editor + Re-Recording Mixer ALEXIS FEODOROFF
Dialogue Editor + Re-Recording Mixer TIM CHAPRONIERE
Colorist MATTHEW WEAR

CAST

Baby Teeth DEEDEE COMET
Louie CALEB CAMERON-LEE
Holden NICO MOY
Chops MAKEA UPU
Dyl MATTY ROCKEL
Curt BEN OLLIVER
Nat GEMA WHITFORD-JOYNT
Gemma EMILY PATTERSON