Aunty and the Star People

Aged 50, Jean Watson sold her Wellington house to buy land for a children’s home in southern India. In 2013, filmmaker Gerard Smyth (director of acclaimed quake chronicle When a City Falls) spent two months in India, chronicling Watson and some of the many lives she has changed. Smyth’s documentary also harks back to the 60s, when Watson wrote novel Stand in the Rain, and hunted crocodiles with Barry Crump. The result won solid audiences at the 2014 NZ Film Festival. The Listener gave it four stars; “Unpretentious but unashamedly enjoyable” said The Dominion Post.

When I first came to India I was just going to be a tourist. It was all chance and circumstance. I think it was karma.

– Jean Watson

Key Cast & Crew

Gerard Smyth

Director, Writer, Cinematographer

Scott Flyger

Editor, Writer

Jo Coffey

Executive Producer

Joy Cowley

Subject

Chris Sinclair

Sound Design

Jan Sandle

Sound