Kapiti brother and sister soar high on world film  scene

By Alan Tristram

Sister and brother, Linda and Andrew Niccol, who have been crafting films for several years now, are both currently in the International spotlight.

Linda, who is known for her short story writing and co-writing of “Second Hand Wedding, has had the film of her story “The Handkerchief” shown  at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California.

Meanwhile, in the past week it’s also been shown as a short in NZ in the International Film Festival accompanying the full length feature “Still Life.”

And In the Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York, Lindaʼs film script “Poppy” deals with the life of a Downs Syndrome girl who has the will to overcome many of her difficulties.

Andrew Niccol’s successes

Linda’s brother Andrew Niccol now has six major films to his credit, the most recent being “The Host,” derived from the Stephenie Meyer SciFi story of the same name.

Following the success of her “Twilight” books and films, Stephenie invited Andrew to script and direct the movie.

His latest film, “Good Kill,” deals with the moral dilemma of a ʻDrone pilotʼ who begins to query the role he is playing in killing people on the other side of the world, many of them

innocents.

This film release date has not yet been published, but in the meantime will debut at the Venice Film Festival from 27 August to 6 September and following that at the

Toronto Film Festival from 4 September to 14 September.

And with the current global concern about the role of drones in warfare, this film should be controversial.