We Were Dangerous

We've got all sorts: waifs, strays, sex delinquents...that's a new one.

– The Matron (Rima Te Wiata) characterizes her students

Best case scenario: you're let into polite society.

– Daisy (Manaia Hall) on the likely outcomes of the reform school

Being a moral participant in society is the key.

– The Matron (Rima Te Wiata) advises the students on behaviour

Our studies show young women are more promiscuous . . . It's best not to think of the girls as wives and mothers. It may well be beyond them.

– A doctor advises the Matron the the student's potential futures

We're not becoming civilised on this island; we're just not becoming pregnant.

– Nellie (Erana James) fights back against the Matron

I always knew I wanted to write a story about teenage girls. And I always knew I wanted to write an escape film and a film that really championed their friendships and had a lot of joy in it, in spite of all this dark historical context that was interesting to me.

– Writer Maddie Dai on the inspirations behind We Were Dangerous, Variety, 22 March 2024

After all, We Were Dangerous isn’t a doom-laden exposé about a specific episode of female dehumanization. It’s a hopeful — sometimes borderline exuberant — rallying cry for girls to stick together across the various divides that people use to disempower them.

– Reviewer David Ehrlich, IndieWire website, 8 March 2024

When we look at our history through cinema, it can be really heavy and our retelling of that does fall quite hard into drama. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but I don’t want the film to get boxed into that, and I don’t want people to feel like this film is inaccessible for them, [that] it’s going to be this hard, heavy, film about mistreatment of young people in state care. There is very much an element of that but the flip side . . . is the joy, lightness, and celebration of friendships. There are elements of the trauma but I feel like we’ve also balanced the darkness with the light. You can’t have one without the other.

– Director Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu on the film being a work of fiction, Flicks website, 14 August 2024

In 2022, we all moved down to Christchurch for three months, in the dead of winter, to shoot a film about teenage girlhood and giving the middle finger to the system. It was still the COVID era . . . I directed the entire film wearing a facemask. It wasn’t so bad; the mask protected our cheeks and lips from being chapped and beaten by the Antarctic winds that whipped around the Banks Peninsula.

– Director Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu on shooting the film in 2022, Madman press release, 22 August 2024