Among the Cinders

Author Maurice Shadbolt steps up to play the father of the main character in this adaptation of his acclaimed coming of age novel. Blaming himself for the death of a Māori friend, teenager Nick (Paul O’Shea) escapes his parents to visit his grandparents. Nick and his misfit grandpa (Derek Hardwick) set out to visit old haunts, and Nick falls for a young woman whose relationship has gone bad (Rebecca Gibney, in her screen debut). Shot partly in Golden Bay, the German-Kiwi co-production can be seen in full on NZ On Screen. German director Rolf Hädrich wrote the script with Pacific Films legend John O’Shea. 

[Director] Rolf [Hädrich] had made many good films which were artistic and popular with German audiences ... Rolf was now trying to make a cinema feature, like many of those young directors he had trained in his earlier years at Norddeutscher Rundfunk. They had been successful — why shouldn’t he? A foreign location, exotic people — why not?

– Producer/co-writer John O'Shea, in 1999 book Don't Let it Get You, page 147

Key Cast & Crew

Rebecca Gibney

As: Sally

Maurice Shadbolt

Original Author, As: Frank Flinders (Nick's father)

Derek Hardwick

As: Hubert Flinders

Paul O'Shea

As: Nick Flinders

John O'Shea

Producer, Writer

Rolf Hädrich

Director, Writer