CROCODILE

Filmmakers Chelsea Winstanley and Pietra Brettkelly need your help to work towards completion of their feature documentary film CROCODILE.

And good news - your donation is through a fiscal sponsor in the US, From The Heart Productions.  You will be emailed a tax receipt of this charitable donation for your income tax.

The cRiTiCs - as the subjects of CROCODILE call themselves - have already been noticed by Ava Duvernay.  JJ Abrams gifted them a huge supply of film equipment and spoke with them to empower them onwards.  Morgan Freeman produced their short film Tomorrow's War.  Their work has premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum and MoCADA, New York.

They are still aged between eight and 22.

You also can be a part of their journey by supporting this documentary film.

SHORT SYNOPSIS

“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art”  Orson Welles 1948

Its English translation is CROCODILE, this small town of Kaduna in the middle of Nigeria, West Africa.  Its here nine children aged between 5 and 19 are writing their own narrative … and setting it in 2049. 

With names hinting at so much hope and future - Rejoice, Godwin, Josiah - they are determined not to be sucked into the prospects of a number of Nigerian youth - drug running and scamming.  But instead they begin to chart a future into the scifi filmmaking industry they believe will save them.

CROCODILE is a coming-of-age film like no other, intimate, revealing, tragic and celebratory.  It charts their extraordinary multi-year journey towards making their first scifi feature film.  

Years ago our CROCODILE cameras first began documenting their journey as initially they were armed with only a single mobile camera, little electricity and wild imaginations.  The nine brothers, sisters and cousins reached out from poverty and desperation to change the course of their lives. They began to make unique sci-fi films.

BACKGROUND AND WHAT THE FUNDRAISING IS FOR

Filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly began filming 3.5 years ago, capturing these incredible stories.  And since then the subjects have become co-owners and co-producers of the film, during the Covid pandemic continuing every day to film their own lives.  Pietra has been largely self-funding the film apart from an initial US$20,000 from the Catapult Film Fund.

Producer Chelsea Winstanley recently came on board the film.  And now we need your help to raise funds to support the completion of the film

- to film scenes at an exhibition of the film's subjects work at the Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt

- to film the final scene and as the cameras roll on Day One of their first feature length film

- towards research and commissioning of the music sound track 

- to commission the creation of the scifi and magical realism elements within the film

- to complete the edit of the film ready for film festival submissions and distribution discussions

We would be so grateful and it will be a film you will be so proud to be connected with.

FILMOGRAPHIES

PRODUCER Chelsea Winstanley

Chelsea Winstanley is an Oscar® nominated producer, an award-winning filmmaker and has been a producer, writer and director for the past two decades.

As a p.g.a. producer on Taika Waititi’s Academy nominated feature JOJO RABBIT, Chelsea became the first indigenous female Oscar® nominee for Best Picture. 

In 2019 she joined NIGHT RAIDERS as a producer on the first Canadian / NZ Indigenous Co-Production written and directed by Creē first nations filmmaker Danis Goulet. 

Chelsea has continued her work with other indigenous creatives as a producer on the Hawaiian film KA PŌ written and directed by Etienne Aurelias starring Mainei Kinimaka and Mojean Aria. The film is currently on the festival circuit. 

As a producer her critically-acclaimed documentary feature, MERATA: HOW MUM DECOLONISED THE SCREEN was distributed by Ava Duvernay and Array, which played at the 2019 Sundance and Berlin film festivals and is now on NETFLIX worldwide.

2022 KA PO Producer

2021 NIGHT RAIDERS Producer

2019 JOJO RABBIT Producer

2018 MERATA: HOW MUM DECOLONISED THE SCREEN Producer

2014 WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Producer

DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Pietra Brettkelly

Pietra Brettkelly is a Sundance award-winning and three times Oscar® -selected director, writer and producer.  She is the inaugural New Zealand Arts Laureate in Documentary and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her films have premiered In Competition at five of the world’s top six film festivals and a collection of her films have screened at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence and at MOMA, New York.

Pietra is a three times Sundance Institute alum.  She has received support from the New Zealand Film Commission, the Sundance Institute, Gucci Tribeca Fund, BritDoc and the Binger Film Lab.  Dame Jane Campion recently invited Pietra to host a masterclass at her film school. “Pietra is an artist. Her cinema is stunning and complex. She has a voice in the film world, and tenacity to ensure it is heard,” she said.

Pietra specialises in making unique, intimate, cinematic work that open windows into another world.  Her films have a considered quietness, a non-judgemental approach that allows the subjects to tell their stories.

2018   YELLOW IS FORBIDDEN  World Premier:  Tribeca Film Festival, April 2018, Oscar’s Best Foreign Language and Best Documentary selection

2015 A FLICKERING TRUTH  World Premier:  Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Oscar’s Best Foreign Language selection

2012 MAORI BOY GENIUS  World Premier:  Berlin Film Festival

2008 THE ART STAR AND THE SUDANESE TWINS  World Premier:  Sundance Film Festival, winner Best Editing World Documentary Sundance Film Festival

2003 BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD  World Premier: American Film Institute Film Festival, Los Angeles

CO-PRODUCERS / SUBJECTS OF THE FILM The cRiTiCs

Pietra and Chelsea are intent on making sure the subjects have ownership over their own story and have legally made The cRiTiCs co-owners and co-producers of CROCODILE.

Their own short scifi films can be found on their YouTube channel: