Mark Whittet and Sophee Hills will reprise their roles of the young Arapeta and Miriama.

With shooting set to commence on 21 January, preparations are once again in full swing for yet another major shoot for the Amiri & Aroha trilogy.It is always an exciting time, honing the script, location scouting, storyboarding the sequences. Creativity is at a peak!

My main aim for this shoot is to more fully develop the relationship between the young Arapeta and Miriama. They start out like Pip and Estella in Great Expectations with Miriama, just back from an exclusive finishing school in Switzerland, decrying Arapeta for his gangland origins. Miriama’s journey as a child is a vital precursor to developments in Rere’s Children, as the trilogy reaches its conclusion.


Sophee Hills is flying down from Gisborne to Oamaru next week for the filming which will expand the role of the young Miriama. The new footage will give Miriama more back story and make her initial hostility to Arapeta and her subsequent transformation more understandable.