Sima Urale

Occupation: Film and Television Director

Hometown: Fagamalo and Matavai villages in Savai’i, Samoa

Now living: Auckland, New Zealand

Career began: 1995, straight out of film school

Favourite artist: Rembrandt

Favourite group: Lemi Ponifasio, MAU dance group

Favourite book: Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Favourite song: Stand Up by Bob Marley

Favourite Pacific food: Lu’au

Favourite tradition: Matai oratory and proverbs

Brief history

Sima Urale recently premiered her debut feature film, Apron Strings, which has been selected for the Toronto Film Festival.

Sima emigrated from Samoa to New Zealand with her family when she was seven, and graduated from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 1989. After two years of professional acting, she pursued her ambitions as a director and graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Arts, Film and Television from the Swinburne Film and Television School (Victorian College of the Arts) in Melbourne in 1994.

In 1996, she wrote and directed a 15-minute film, O Tamaiti, funded by the New Zealand Film Commission. The film won eight international awards including Best Short Film at Venice, Asia-Pacific, Chicago, Aspen and Newport Beach film festivals, as well as the New Zealand Film and Television Awards.

A year later, she directed the documentary Velvet Dreams for Television New Zealand’s Work of Art series. Velvet Dreams later won Best Documentary Award at the Yorkton International Short Film and Video Festival in Canada.

Another of Sima’s films, Still Life, is about an elderly couple and won Best Short Film at the 2001 Montreal World Film Festival. It also won Best Director, Best Script, and Best Art Department at the Drifting Clouds Film Festival.

Sima talks to Pacific Starmap…

How did you get started in the arts?

I am a graduate of the New Zealand Drama School Toi Whakaari and started my career in acting in professional theatre at Fortune Theatre, Downstage and Circa, as well as touring shows.

After two years of professional acting with pretty much the same audience coming each time, I wanted to be more accessible. I knew that television and film was a lot more accessible to our people, and it reaches a broader audience internationally too.

I wanted to tell stories I feel strongly about, and that was when I started looking at film schools overseas, because in those days there weren’t any so called film schools in New Zealand.

I chose to look at Australia before America; there were two main film schools and I chose to apply to Swinburne – they only took 14 places back then, and if you were shortlisted, you had to attend a panel for an interview. So I flew to Melbourne for one afternoon for the interview – that’s how much I wanted it.

I did the three-year course, and it didn’t phase me one bit being the only Pacific Islander in the entire school – I loved being different. I didn’t know anything about film-making and I learnt everything from that school – how to edit, cinematography, all the technical aspects.

It was important for me to experiment and play with this craft, learning the skills, so that I could make my stories the best that I can. I wasn’t too worried about the directing side, because of my acting experience working with amazing directors in theatre from Colin McColl, Murray Lynch, James Beaumont, and Nathaniel Lees.

I graduated in 1994, came back to Wellington, and wrote and directed my first short film O Tamaiti – it went overseas and did really well, and ever since then I’ve been a director for films, documentaries, commercials, and filming various projects from New York, London, to Malaysia.

How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an actor and/or director?

I was 19 when I came across a performing arts thing that I wasn’t into. I had to do a performance arts course – an Access course – otherwise they would take you off the dole. So I stumbled across it.

It was with this amazing guy Rangimoana Taylor, and after six months on the course, Rangimoana said – ‘Sima, why don’t you apply to the New Zealand Drama School?’ And I said ‘are you kidding?’ And he said ‘You can do it’.

So I rehearsed two audition pieces with his help and guidance, and auditioned for drama school, and that’s how I got accepted. Basically, someone very special gave me the confidence to dive in and give it a go.

Drama school has given me a solid grounding for anything I do now; I learnt how to work as a team, what my tolerance levels are, it taught me self-discipline and much more. So mostly it has taught me a lot about myself – my strengths and weaknesses.

Why did you move from acting to being behind the camera?

You have more control. You can express your story, ideas and concerns – that’s the great thing about being a director and being behind the camera.

Acting is a lot of fun and a great career but you are often acting in other people’s works and other people’s plays, and it’s an amazing skill, but if you want to tell your own stories you need to start writing and directing to have any direct creative input.

It’s a powerful medium in that your voice and ideas can travel to the other side of the world, particularly another culture with a different language, who relate to the same issues and concerns that we have.

What are you working on at the moment? What’s next?

I have just finished some commercial work to make up for the lack of money that we get on film projects; I’ve just started work on a domestic violence DVD project.

I’m also focusing on my script Moana, which is the working title for a feature film script that I’ve been working on for the last five years.

Writing would have to be the most difficult aspect of the entire film-making process, as it can take five to ten years to complete a script, and then you’re lucky if it ever gets made – and that’s something most people don’t realise.

Moana is like my baby and will be my next feature film and I am working out the details. It’s a magical surreal urban story with special effects that explores the mystical elements. It will be disturbing but also beautiful, as there is beauty and ugliness in everything.

What advice would you give somebody thinking about a career in film?

Be sure of yourself of what you want to do, take that risk and jump off that big cliff to do it. Stop dillydallying around.

I’ve come across so many people who talk a lot about making films instead of just doing it. Although I must say, be realistic too – as too many people have very high hopes of employment in the industry, and some get carried away with the glamour of the film industry, when in reality it’s a lot of sweat and hard work.

Sima will answer more questions on Pacific Starmap in coming months, so join our email list to be the first to know when she is our featured Champion.

PACIFIC STARMAP CHAMPIONS:

Pacific Starmap