What makes Hunt For The Wilderpeople an Independent Film

Hunt For The Wilderpeople (Taika Watiti, 2016) is a feature film about a young boy and his father who become subjects of a manhunt which results in them stranded in the New Zealand wilderness.

There is a large debate behind what is considered as a true independent film and what is a traditional Hollywood film, with the lines being blurred more and more often. Most popularly an independent film is one made outside of the large Hollywood studio system and which has a small budget. Others say that an indepedent film is one that gave the filmmakers or director creative freedom and vision, independent film is also considered in its aesthetic and story elements. Many independent films explore more controversial or less spoken about topics and represents people often not represented in Hollywood films.

Hunt For The Wilderpeople, whatever the arguments to what is and isnt an independent movie, is an indepedent film. Directed by Taika Watiti, a renowned, Oscar nominated filmmaker known for his quirky indie movies including, Boy and What We Do in The Shadows. The film was produced by Piki Films, a New Zealand based production company that brings together Watiti and other filmmakers from New Zealand including, Madeleine Sami, Jackie van Beek, Jessica Hansell, Tanu Gago, Sophie Henderson and Curtis Vowell.

The films budget was just $2.5 million which is a small budget in comparison to those of the larger Hollywood produced films. The film was only distributed in 6 countries, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, the USA and the United Kingdom. Although only released in a few countries the film did exceptionally well, smashing the box office records in NZ and Australia (His film Boy being the previous record holder) and made $23,845,533 worldwide.

The films stars other than Sam Neill (Jurrasic Park) most of the stars are relatively unknown to an international audience, all of them being from New Zealand as well as the filmmakers. The film was shoot primarily on locations in the New Zealand wilderness, almost all of the film is shot in exterior locations. The film was shot over all day, everyday over a 5 week period.

"We were out there all day long in the freezing cold. Five weeks is not long to

work with when you've got car chases, kids, animals and it's the dead of a New Zealand winter." - Taika Watiti

Watiti on the set of Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Taking into account the aesthetic and story qualities that some critics and filmmakers consider to make an independent film, Hunt For The Wilderpeople still meets the standards. As I spoke about above the film was primarily shot in exterior locations in the New Zealand wilderness, the locations add to the entire aesthetic of the film, giving the film an atmosphere that large Hollywood productions dont have. The two main characters, Ricky (Julian Dennison) and Hec (Sam Neill) are the main focus of most of the film, there is oppourntunity for the audience to get to know the characters, through story and dialogue, creating a character centric film, removing focus from intricately produced action scenes, found in Hollywood produced films.

The representation of the people of New Zealand and indigenous people is also a distinct quality the film has, the entire cast of the film are New Zealand born. Watiti and his production company, Piki Films have taken on the responsiblity of representing actors and the stories of people from NZ. This is in itself another aspect of the film that seperates itself from Hollywood, who still struggle with representation in its movies.

Hunt For The Wilderpeople IS an independent film, from the finances and the production company behind the making of the film. To the aesthetic and story elements employed. This film is an almost perfect representation of the independent film production model.