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       #Post#: 120--------------------------------------------------
       Media and Press Archive
       By: Sylwia Date: January 19, 2018, 8:47 am
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       Variety's 10 Directors to Watch list - January 17, 2007:
  HTML http://variety.com/2007/film/features/taika-waititi-1117957583/
       [quote]Taika Waititi
       10 Directors to Watch
       By Matthew Ross
       January 17, 2007
       Taika Waititi may be arriving at Sundance with his first
       feature, but he’s already a festival veteran. His first
       invitation to Park City came in 2004, when he screened his short
       “Two Cars, One Night,” which was later nominated for
       an Oscar. The following year, he attended with three separate
       projects: fest short “Tama Tu” and feature scripts
       “Choice” and “Eagle vs. Shark,” both of
       which went through the Sundance Institute’s
       Screenwriters/Directors Labs.
       Waititi spent 2006 in New Zealand shooting “Eagle vs.
       Shark,” a deadpan comedy about two social misfits who find
       love. The film was picked up by Miramax off a five-minute
       trailer shown at the Cannes Market.
       But Waititi, a Kiwi of Maori descent, only decided to become a
       filmmaker four years ago. “I started out as an actor, and
       was also involved in standup comedy and visual art,” says
       Waititi, who also goes by the last name of Cohen.
       “Unfortunately, there aren’t enough interesting
       acting roles in New Zealand to sustain a career. At a certain
       point, I decided I just needed to make my own work. And after
       the first short did well, I realized there were a few more
       stories I was keen on telling, so I just kept at it.”
       “Taika is more than unique, he’s really
       magic,” says “Eagle” producer Ainsley
       Gardiner. “The development process all takes place in his
       head and when he writes, what ends up on paper the first time is
       almost always the finished product. He uses humor to translate
       the world, and he really has an incredible understanding of what
       it means to be human.”
       Waititi was inspired to write “Eagle” after seeing a
       performance by actress Loren Horsley. Soon afterward, he began
       writing a script based on a character she had created, Lily, a
       sexually repressed fast-food waitress. The film’s other
       lead, a tormented videostore clerk named Jarrod, is played by
       Waititi’s former standup partner Jemaine Clement, who will
       soon be seen in the HBO series “Flight of the
       Conchords.”
       “New Zealanders are good at making dark films, but we
       decided to do the opposite,” Waititi says. “This is
       the broadest and quirkiest that my comedy has ever gone.”
       His next project, a drama about Maori children, is based on his
       “Two Cars” short.
       VITAL STATS
       Age: 31
       Provence: Wellington, New Zealand
       Inspired by: P.T. Anderson, Todd Solondz, Wong Kar Wai, Park
       Chan-wook
       Reps: Agent, Rowena Arguelles, CAA; manager, Dan Halsted;
       attorney, Linda Lichter, Lichter Grossman Nichols &
       Adler[/quote]
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