The House Within

The effect is one of a slow unravelling: of Prendeville coaxing out the threads of Kidman’s story, keeping a close and tidy stitch to the theme of “the house” which is symbolic of the central concerns of Kidman’s artistic worlds – the restricted lives of women and the subversion that erupts because of it; the “brutalisation” of men; and the scars of societal injustice. 

– Spinoff writer Claire Mabey, in a review of the film, 1 August 2024

People were not used to women talking frankly about their lives, about their emotions, and this is what I had done. It wasn't so much a matter of trying to shock people; it was feeling the freedom that went into my work. You couldn't take that way from me.

– Fiona Kidman on writing honestly, rather than out of a desire to shock, in the trailer

In order to write, we need to go within . . . I am very interested in surfaces and what lies beneath them, I always have been.

– Fiona Kidman at the start of the trailer

I used to be able to hear a conversation three tables away in a restaurant. Friends complained that I had disappeared because what I'd do is go off to the loo and write things down. 

– Fiona Kidman, in the trailer

Fiona has spent her life standing up for the rights of others, and carving out a space for herself in industries where she was often the only woman in the room. 

– Director Joshua Prendeville

Anyone who knows Fiona knows how big her heart is: she’s immeasurably kind, patient and thoughtful. But there is also this ferocity to her writing that sometimes seems at odds with the warmly hospitable woman one finds themselves in front of. So from the beginning there was this curious contradiction that kept gnawing at me.

– Director Joshua Prendeville in an interview on the film, The Post, 17 July 2024

The House Within is a film that simply needed to be made. It shines a long overdue light on one of New Zealand’s most inspiring artistic figures and the fearless determination required to write the novels which have had such a lasting impact on the cultural identity. 

– Director Joshua Prendeville