The End of the Golden Weather

This beautiful story captures all the best elements of New Zealand filmmaking. From the first few seconds of the opening scene, the cinematography pulls you in and takes your breath away

The End of the Golden Weather, New Zealand, 1991

Director: Ian Mune
Production company: South Pacific Pictures
Producers: Christina Milligan, Ian Mune
Executive producer: Don Reynolds
Screenplay: Ian Mune, Bruce Mason
Based on the original stage play by: Bruce Mason
Director of photography: Alun Bollinger
Editor: Michael Horton
Composer: Stephen McCurdy
Designer: Ron Highfield
Costume designer: Barbara Darragh
Sound designer: Greg Bell

With: Stephen Fulford (Geoff), Stephen Papps (Firpo), Paul Gittins (Dad), Gabrielle Hammond (Mum), Ray Henwood (Reverend Thirle), Steve McDowell (Jesse Cabot), Alice Fraser (Mrs Atkinson), Bill Johnson (Mr Atkinson), Alistair Douglas (Sergeant Robinson), Greg Johnson (Uncle Jim), Alison Bruce (Auntie Kass)

35mm, colour, 103 minutes, PG

Watch the trailer for The End of the Golden Weather (5.82MB; 1.42 minutes)

NZ Film Awards 1992: Best Film, Best Director (Ian Mune), Best Male Performance (Stephen Papps), Cinematography (Alun Bollinger), Production Design (Ron Highfield), Editing (Michael Horton), Film Score (Stephen McCurdy), Contribution to Design (Barbara Darragh for costume)

The End of the Golden Weather is a funny, warm and poignant story about the changing world of an imaginative boy aged twelve-and-a-bit. The boy, Geoff Crome, is a daydreamer with a burning ambition to be a famous writer. We see through his eyes the wonder of life on a perfect beach in a perfect 1930s New Zealand summer. His is a world of magic and transformation, where anything can happen and miracles seem possible. When Geoff meets Firpo, another dreamer with a powerful ambition, a battle between fantasy and reality, magic and science, the eternal optimism of the child and the harsh certainty of age takes over.

“... this beautiful story captures all the best elements of New Zealand filmmaking. From the first few seconds of the opening scene, the cinematography pulls you in and takes your breath away.... Actor Stephen Papps as Firpo is absolutely brilliant, and the young boy who plays Geoff is a wonder in this demanding role. Their characters transcend from the written page into a place that is utterly believable. Writer and director Ian Mune was to have begun The End of the Golden Weather in 1976, but it didn’t happen until 1991 after the death of Bruce Mason, actor/author of the original one-man stage play and co-writer of the screenplay. Mason was Mune’s longtime friend and collaborator, and this film is a tribute to their relationship, a gift carefully and elaborately crafted. What a lovely way for Mune to say goodbye.” — Susan Martel, The People’s Voice, 21 July 1993

Classic in the theatre, The End of the Golden Weather, has been brought to the screen in fine style. It’s a rosy, elegiac vision of paradise lost, mixed with the hope of a vision awakened. Mune captures nicely the sense of a child’s heightened perception of the world, in which exaggerated fantasy mixes easily with humdrum reality. The story turns on the moment when 13-year-old Geoff jumps the gap from childhood and begins to appreciate life from an adult point of view. Stephen Papps almost steals the show as the odd, and rather disturbed Firpo, a child-man who dreams of winning races at the Olympics.” — Costa Botes, Sunday Times, 15 November 1992

“From the opening shot of a golden-sunrise rippling over the sea and distant mountains, one hopes to be carried away somewhere beautiful and magical. And it happens... the fantasies of childhood are perfectly captured and could not fail to stir memories of the imaginary games one played as a kid. Fulford is excellent as our young hero who befriends the local loopy, Firpo. The eccentric Firpo lives in a shack at the end of the beach and thinks he’s in training for the next Olympics. The local lads tease him mercilessly and goad him into entering a beach race which he is bound to lose. Geoff, despite warnings to say away sticks by his new friend. He believes in miracles. ‘Miracles are mad’, says his brother, but Geoff believes, ‘Anything can happen’. And inevitably it does. Full of quaint characters, this is truly magical movie making. Do not miss.” — Angie Taylor, Film Review, February 1993

Screenings: The End of the Golden Weather screened on: 28 January 2009; 30 January 2008 as part of the 'Big Sky' season; 27 January 2007 as part of the Adapted: NZ Literature into Film season; 11 January 2006; and 6 February 2005