Child stars rule the showbiz world
At the Shangri-la Plaza Mall, with its penchant for sponsoring free foreign film festivals, we watched Boy, the highestgrossing New Zealand indie to date, during the New Zealand Filmfest. It reminded us of Cinemalaya’s Ang Pagdadalaga
ni Maximo Oliveros directed by Auraeus Solito, still its highest grosser to this day.
Like Maximo, Boy is a coming-ofage film written and directed by Taika Waititi, who also plays the father in the film. Unlike Maximo, whose rejection by a policeman he had a crush on hastens his growing up, Boy has had to face the truth that both Michael Jackson and his father Alamein whom he idolized are not superheroes but plain human beings with frailties of their own.
The film, financed by the New Zealand Film Commission, was shot in a small settlement on New Zealand’s East Coast where the director grew up. Playing leads
Marichu Maceda (rightmost) beside Bugoy Cariño at the launch of the MMFF 2012 are two inexperienced Maori boys — James Rolleston as Boy, and Te Aho Eketone Whitu as brother Rocky. Boy was one of 14 films shown at Sundance 2006 where Waititi’s two other films had premiered in the past.
The story deals with a week in the life of Boy when, after seven years in prison, his father Alamein comes home with two lackeys, a carful of pasalubong from TV set to kitchen appliances, charm and bravura, stories of conquests he has made, and promises of bringing Boy back