A Kiwi Christmas movie is due for release at the end of November.
Fed up with the materialism of Christmas, Santa runs away to New Zealand for a summer holiday.
When two Kiwi kids figure out who he is, they have to find a way to get him back to the North Pole in time for Christmas.
“It appeals to all ages really. It’s got a nice moralistic tale as well as being entertaining,” said the director of photography Donald Duncan.
“Kiwi Christmas, New Zealand’s first Christmas movie, will appeal to international audiences because of how different it is to other Christmas movies,” he said.
“It is a really summery film.
“I think that’s going to be one of its great selling points on the international market, that northern hemisphere people are so attuned to the fact that Christmas is at winter time.
“I think that will give it a real intrigue factor. It screams jandals and shorts and barbecues.”
Duncan said the film featured comedy and emotion and he was happy with how it had turned out.
Kiwi Christmas was shot over a six-week period at a beach north of Auckland and in a strawberry-packing shed in Riverhead.
Veteran Finnish actor Kari Vaananen (Night on Earth, Leningrad Cowboys Go America) will play Santa with top New Zealand actors Sia Trokenheim (Everything we Loved, Beyond the Known World) and Xavier Horan (The Dead Lands, The Dark Horse) taking other lead roles.
The two children will be played by newcomers Samuel Clark and Luca Andrews. The supporting cast includes well-known actors Troy Kingi, Laura Daniel, Wesley Dowdell, Will Hall and Ian Mune.
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