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 awarded He Kauahi Catalyst funding and support from the New Zealand Film Commission. Pack Rat premiered in October 2024 at New Zealand’s only Oscar®-qualifying festival, Show Me Shorts, where Lucy won Best Screenplay. At the Australian Cinematographers Society Awards, DP Ryan Alexander Lloyd won GOLD in the Short Films category for Pack Rat.
Short Film | Narrative | Drama | 18 minutes | 1.85:1 | Colour | 2024
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.
FESTIVALS & AWARDS
Show Me Shorts Film Festival (New Zealand) - Best Screenplay, winner!
Australian Cinematographers Society Awards - GOLD, winner!
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