Trouble Is My Business

I worked at Aorere [College] as the Arts Coordinator for six months before I started shooting, so the teachers all knew me and many of the students had seen me around the school. I can also be quite shy when I first meet people and I think this worked in my favour as it meant the students weren’t intimidated by me. I think the kids and their parents could tell I was a genuine person; they trusted Mr Peach, and Mr Peach trusted me. The main reason though is that I was filming for so long that everyone just forgot about me.

– Director Juliette Veber, in an interview with Flicks, 1 June 2008

[The film] shows us that this refreshingly blunt and honest man genuinely cares about each and every one of the students, and will not stand for even one of them being left behind by a system that sometimes loses patience too early with those who need it the most. This is a terrific piece of work — funny, entertaining, occasionally downright moving.

– Graeme Tuckett describes the film's subject Gary Peach in a four star review, The Dominion Post, 13 August 2009

..it's your choice. Do you want to see your mother prosecuted in a court of law? . . . do you want to see that or not?

– Gary Peach plays hardball with a frequent truant

There was a certain point where I realised that the film already knew what it was supposed to be, and that somehow I was just trying to get the footage to that place. It was like a massively complicated jigsaw puzzle. . . . It was so challenging that at one point I phoned my five best friends and asked them whether I should just give up and shelve the project.  . . .  I knew I owed it to the kids to finish the film. I knew how easy it was for people who are not from the area to just ignore the problems that kids in South Auckland face. I did not want to be one of those people . . . And somehow after three and a half years of editing, the film emerged from within the footage and we knew it was finished.

– Juliette Veber on the long process of edting the film, Flicks, 1 June 2008

I care for Jesse very much, I really do. I’ve got a very soft spot for Jesse. I’d like to think that we could do something for him.

– Assistant Principal Gary Peach voices concern for an at risk Aorere College student

...if you're coming from the outside and you're coming in here to teach, you've got to understand you know, we value things differently. I guess it's that sense of "are you genuine? Do you really care about my education? Do you really care about me as a person?'' . . . Kids here are like that. But if you show that, they will walk on water for you.

– Gary Peach on teaching and working at Aorere College

I don’t want to go to school because…there were heaps of girls that had stuff with me . . .  and then on the way home, Peachy didn’t know, we were having a scrap in front of my house.  . . . after she was on the ground, bleeding, she told, she was like you know "wait till you come to school, I'll get all my girls", you know, and stuff like that.

– Teenager Alicia explains why she is avoiding going to school

Obtaining permission slps from everyone who featured in the film and navigating an edit that took four years to complete was a complicated process, and many times I cursed myself for choosing such challenging subject matter.

– Director Juliette Veber, in an interview with Onfilm, May 2009, page 22 (Volume 26, number 5)une 2008