About
Little known in its homeland, but an award-winner overseas, director Michael Heath's tragic portrait of mother and child confronts "intense emotion without flinching" (as Lawrence McDonald wrote). Largely bypassing dialogue in favour of a more elemental approach, the filmmakers combine sound and song (courtesy of composer David Downes and singer Mahinārangi Tocker) with lyrical imagery of the family revelling in their rural backblock (shot by Stephen Latty). There is added poignancy in the fact that Tocker — playing the mother who loses her boy — herself passed away in 2008.
Key Cast & Crew
MT
Mahinārangi Tocker
As: Ana
Related images
Kelly Leader-Tropman as Tama in A Small Life, directed by Michael Heath.
Kindly supplied by Michael Heath.
Mahinarangi Tocker in A Small Life, directed by Michael Heath.
Kindly supplied by Michael Heath.
(L-R) Key players in song-cycle A Small Life: editor, composer and all round sound wizard David Downes, star Mahinarangi Tocker, executive producer Bhim Singh Chouhan, and writer/director Michael Heath.
Kindly supplied by Michael Heath.
A scene from A Small Life.
Kindly supplied by Michael Heath.
