The son of a British mother and Fijian father, Toa Fraser was born in London in 1975, and moved to Auckland with his family in 1989. Movie-mad since childhood, at the age of 12 he wrote to the producers of the James Bond movies, asking for permission to make a Bond film of his own. The lawyers were not keen. Later he spent four years as a cinema usher and began acting and writing plays while studying at Auckland University.
His career proved a stellar one from early on. In 1998 he picked up awards for Best New Play (Bare) and Best New Playwright at the Chapman Tripp theatre awards. The two-hander saw Ian Hughes and Madeleine Sami playing an array of 15 characters. Metro called it “an instant classic”. In 1999 he won the Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Award.
It was his second play, No.2 (1999) that catapulted him (and Sami) to fame, winning the Festival First Award at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, alongside performances in Europe, Canada, Jamaica and Fiji. Set over the course of one day, as an elderly Fijian matriarch demands a family feast so she can choose her successor, the play saw Sami playing every role.
In 2000, Fraser worked for a year with director Vincent Ward on the screenplay for Ward’s film River Queen. In the same period, he co-wrote a one-hour TV drama Staunch, with director Keith Hunter. It’s the story of a young Māori woman (Once Were Warriors’ Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell) defending herself against an unfair police prosecution, with the help of a friendly social worker.
In 2001, Fraser was awarded the University of South Pacific’s Writer in Residence Fellowship. Whilst there, in Fiji, he began work on the film adaptation of No. 2, a process that would take four years and an estimated 20 drafts.
He had never directed a play or film before, but was determined to direct No. 2 – partly “out of a sense of responsibility to the Pacific community” – particularly the working class suburb of Mt Roskill, where most of the film was shot. He directed the video for the film’s hit song Bathe in the River sungby Hollie Smith at the Mt Roskill house of relatives.
When No. 2 debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, it won the Audience Award (World Cinema Dramatic) and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Re-titled Naming Number Two in some territories, the film won selection in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival and won the Audience award at the Brisbane International Film Festival. The late Ruby Dee, who played family matriarch Nanna Maria, was awarded Best Actress at the 2006 Atlanta Film Festival. In the same year at the New Zealand Screen Awards No. 2 was nominated in 12 categories, including best film and best director, and won four awards, three of them for performance.
In 2008, Fraser directed his multi award-winning second feature, Dean Spanley, produced by The Dead Lands’ Matthew Metcalfe andstarring Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam, Bryan Brown and Peter O’Toole. A whimsical tale of fathers, sons, dogs, and other lives set in Edwardian England, it received critical acclaim and premiered at a Gala Screening at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival.
Dean Spanley was nominated for 13 awards at the 2009 Qantas Film and Television Awards. It went on to win seven, including best director, best film costing more than $1 million, best screenplay, and best supporting actor (Peter O’Toole).
Next, Fraser wrote and directed Giselle, also produced by Matthew Metcalfe, an acclaimed filmed ballet starring world-renowned dancers Gillian Murphy andQi Huan. Fraser’s interpretation of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s production of Giselle, featuring a score performed by the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra, Giselle premiered at the 2013 New Zealand International Film Festival, followed by an international premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
The Dead Lands is Fraser’s third project with producer Matthew Metcalfe (Dean Spanley, Giselle) and his fourth with renowned cinematographer Leon Narbey (No.2, Dean Spanley, Giselle).
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