Poppy: In cinemas now

Poppy has made headlines all around the world. The debut feature from Director Linda Niccol was the first screen project to get back into production coming out of lockdown in New Zealand. Variety shouted out New Zealand's tough response on Covid and yes, we did get back to work quickly down here; a real privilege. 

Another factor to this film’s early hype was the main character having Downs Syndrome. Casting characters with Downs Syndrome is, unfortunately, a rare occurrence but not without precedent: Pascal Duquenne took the Best Actor award at Cannes in 1996 for his role in Le huitième jour and multi award winning Pablo Pineda wowed the festival circuit with his performance in the film Yo, también (2009).

Libby Huntsdale, playing the title lead in Poppy, is an absolute tour de force.

This was clear to us first hand during post production when Libby came to record her ADR for the film. It can be intimidating for even the most seasoned actors to walk into an ADR studio and hit their lines. Syncing to screen and delivering variation are difficult tasks, as is taking direction from our dialogue expert Jason Canovas, who those in the industry will know, has a ‘distinctive’ accent. 

Libby took the experience in her stride, learning while navigating the voiceover process. Whatever preconceptions were floating around were very quickly dispelled with Libby firing on all cylinders. 

Huge congrats to Linda, Producers Robin Laing and Alex Cole-Baker and the wonderful cast and crew. You can see Poppy playing in cinemas here.