short films

PLEASANT CONCRETE 2008

35mm p2 digital + stills 9Min26sec

writer / director / producer Michael Reihana

director of photography ≠ daniel monaghan / editor daniel monaghan

Short synopsis

Pleasant Concrete is a metaphorical show of images which weigh our character down as he holes himself up with his cement machine & his stockpiled scrap collected for his escape from his quasi first world environment, bringing the film to a critical mass revealing the machine within society.

LITTLE GOLD COWBOY

writer / director / producer michael reihana

co-producer tara landry

editor daniel monaghan

director of photography ≠ richard harling

2002 35mm release print/dolby 5.1

little gold cowboy ≠ festivals: 59^th international venice film festival, the wairoa maori international film festival, chicargo film festival, manchester cine fest, montrial gay & lesbian, nz international film festival, nz home grownä global sales to american home video distribution, rai tv, tvnz & european tv release.

"little gold cowboy" on-line judged synopsis:

equally pleasing is little gold cowboy, the first film directed by michael reihana, a maori-pacific islander who has been working in the us for the last few years. a mix of video and super 8 make up this strange, dark tale of one sexy cowboy.

when a letter addressed only to little gold cowboy is pushed under his door, our hero takes one look and figures heπd better get dressed (leather pants, red codpiece, a harness and wings ã an outfit any sheriff would die for) and get himself, his heart and his goldfish to town. the journey is wonderfully expressed through stop-motion film work, taking us across a beach and through the fields to the streets of a small town, where the cowboy confronts true love, who turns out to be his doppelganger ã except heπs missing a golden sheriffπs star. there are innumerable themes to unearth here ã narcissism, the violence of love, fear of the other, i could go on ã and this is the cleverness of the work: its tale is remarkably simple, but the journey and the telling are complex, tight and just plain absurd fun. itπs also rather beautiful and touching ã a favourite moment is shots of an inscription in ages-old calligraphy on a tombstone that reads, ≥the flowers fadeth because god bloweth upon them.≤ true love indeed.