Back From the Dead - The Saga of the Rose Noelle
This documentary tells the story of four men men who survived 119 days adrift at sea in an upturned trimaran. John Glennie's boat Rose Noelle capsized in the Pacific in June 1989, and washed up four months later on Great Barrier Island. Director Mark Beesley mixes raw interviews and spare reenactment to convey the physical and emotional ordeal; the quartet were sometimes trapped inside a cramped section of the boat for days on end. The epic survival-at- sea tale won Best Documentary at the 1997 TV Awards. The story was later retold in 2015 telemovie Abandoned.
Mark McNeill: On making documentaries, and more...
Mark McNeill runs production company Razor Films, and has worked often with popular TV psychologist Nigel Latta. McNeill has a background as a freelance documentary maker, with credits including Back from the Dead – The Saga of the Rose Noelle, My Father’s War in Italy, and series Epitaph. He also worked on early reality show Kiwi Flatmates.com. McNeill and Latta's collaborations include the Politically Incorrect series of shows and The Hard Stuff with Nigel Latta.
Peter Feeney
Peter Feeney is a veritable Swiss Army knife of the screen, with credits as an actor, casting director and acting tutor. Feeney's 20 year plus acting CV ranges from drama (as Rose-Noelle skipper John Glennie, in TV movie Abandoned), kids TV (The Cul de Sac), comedy (Auckland Daze), New Zealand-shot US shows (Spartacus), and film. He won rave reviews as a mad scientist in movie hit Black Sheep.