O'Reilly's Luck

She said don’t ever lose my land.

– Sissy O'Reilly (Poina Te Hiko)

..the crew did happen to be mostly family and friends, but I think on short films that's a good idea. Obviously you want the quality, so you get experienced people, but it's also an opportunity for other people to train up, which I believe in.

– Pat Robins in an interview with OnFilm, February 1989, page 16 (Volume 6, number 2)

I actually see it as a sort of modern melodrama where you have a heroine trying to save the farm and a couple of villains who are trying to do her down.

– Pat Robins in an interview with OnFilm, February 1989, page 16 (Volume 6, number 2)

I think that real people are actually much more interesting than the general run of larger-than-life characters you often see on television. People who run big corporations and lead so-called glamorous 'life-styles' ... but if you dig beneath the surface, I think you'll find that plumbers or the people who work in pubs often have a lot of humour and tragedy in their lives, and to me that's a lot more fascinating.

– Writer/director Pat Robins, in an interview with The Listener, 19 August 1989, page 29

...we drove around in a clapped-out Toyota Corolla with a video camera and a couple of lights. When I auditioned Poina Te Hiko in Hastings we'd gotten to the stage where there was just myself and a friend .. of all the young women I auditioned, Poina was the only one that I felt actually understood the character.

– Director Pat Robins on casting Poina Te Hiko in the main role, The Listener, 19 August 1989, page 29