| We’re pleased with the success of RIVER OF FREEDOM, which screened in 54 New Zealand cinemas over the past 10 weeks. The feedback has been wonderful! 🥰 If you have been following our social media, you will have noticed that we’ve been inundated with requests from people, here and abroad, wanting to watch the film at home – “Probably the best documentary I’ve ever seen. Very well made and every kiwi should watch it. And yes to buying it digitally or DVD so can play it to family and friends.” Well, we have an exciting announcement to share… |
| 🎙️ We have an online distributor!! |
| JOURNEYMAN PICTURES |
| Journeyman Pictures, a UK-based film distribution company, will be releasing our film online worldwide. Journeyman looks for “the best in factual production”, priding themselves on their collection of films from “award-winning independent filmmakers”. For more than two decades, Journeyman Pictures have distributed provocative, profound and original factual content, working with the top players in the industry. They pride themselves on the longevity of the documentaries they distribute. We are thrilled to align with this supportive distribution company! They have almost 2.3 million followers, so our reach will be massive. We are encouraged and excited to bring our story of the New Zealand Convoy and Parliament protest to the rest of the world in a few weeks. You and your whānau everywhere will be able to view RIVER OF FREEDOM online on all these platforms ! Coming Soon! |
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| From cinemas to online release… |
| Just to give you a bit of an idea about why it’s taking so long: The Captions take time to transcribe. Lots of time – there’s almost FOUR THOUSAND of them 😵💫 with some captions needing translation for our international audience. Kia ora whānau, haere mai, and kotahitanga are just a few! We need to capture all the details for our deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences – cheers, boos, and all that honking! Don’t get us started on the rest of the deliverables required 😬 as they say, this is definitely a Labour of Love! ❤️ We have kept the film mostly the same as what we enjoyed in the cinemas, with only a few trims and re-edits in order to expedite the release as fast as possible, and not have to sit back in edit suites and sound mix suites for another three months. Please reach out to your international friends! And if you have any media or influencer contacts who may be interested in promoting this story? Please let them know. So many people overseas have no idea what happened to us here in New Zealand. |
| …then a Blu-ray for you to share with friends! |
| We are also working as hard as we can to get this film on Blu-ray and DVD. Once we’ve released online, we’ll be building a hard copy. Director Gaylene Barnes is looking forward to editing up some “Special Features” with magical moments from the convoy and protest days that didn’t quite make it into the feature film. Some clips were very hard to lose, but we couldn’t have a 6hr film (original rough cut!). Can’t wait to see these extra little gems 🫶 |
Hi. Why cannot you re-screen this in movie theaters throughout New Zealand again.
We only heard about it until it was too late.
We have heard that this is “a must-see for all New Zealanders. It seems to have had a “very brief” showing in theatres.
Would love to hear back from you outlining more details.
Many thanks Alison Murray
Hi Alison, sorry you missed the cinema run. We had 54 cinemas agree to screen the film over a 10 week period, after contacting ALL cinemas in NZ.
We started with nine (9) cinemas keen to screen River of Freedom, and more came on board as news spread, especially after we made it to No. 1 in the Box Office on Thu 21st Sept. Most documentaries may do a 2 week run, so we think 10 weeks is pretty amazing! Cinemas will be able to get a licence to screen the film in their cinemas in the future through Journeyman Pictures. We’ve notified all cinemas of this, and of some special dates that we think are important to our audience, i.e. February 6 – March 2. If you have a cinema near you, why not email them to let them know you want to watch in the big screen. Thanks, and looking forward to the online release this month!!
WOW – I am from the US. Just watched your film on appletv at the recommendation of a NZ’er on substack.
You are right – people here HAVE NO IDEA this happened. As I was watching I kept thinking Holy Lord how have I not known anything about this?! And this is 2 years later!!
I have never been to New Zealand and don’t know a single Nz’er, but I cried at watching your police treat you like that. I had to stop the film several times to cry. The sign saying ‘Nz police we are doing this for you too!’ really got me.
Even after they attacked you guys, you were still trying to love them. Christ…I would like to hear from some ‘reformed’ NZ police who participated in that but have since seen the light. *Especially now that all this horrifying data on V deaths has been leaked out.*
Could you put together any kind of follow up videos on how people are reacting to that data? Even just on Rumble? I feel like the world needs to know what’s going on there right now, but no one is telling us!
God speed and happy holidays. I consider this movie is a great gift. ❤️