In honour of the Rialto Channel debut of the film CRACKHEADS, I spoke to director, co-writer Tim Tsikaluri and Producer, co-writer Andy Sophocleous about the movie that has been described as a “Kiwi Breaking Bad meets the Hangover” – and then some.

They are both industry pro’s and it shows – the film is a sharply paced giggle as well as a cautionary tale. Director Tim is originally from the Republic of Georgia whilst Andy has a multi disciplinary background and has worked as an actor and writer (he has written eight feature films, one of which has been in development with the NZ Film Commission).

In early 2009 the idea for ‘Crackheads’ was born.  It took three years of development to complete a shooting script and to raise the minimum amount of finance required to turn it into a motion picture. In mid 2012 it was shot on RED, fully crewed, over four six-day weeks in 40 locations and with 44 speaking roles. Phew.

In honour of the Rialto Channel debut of the film CRACKHEADS, I spoke to director, co-writer Tim Tsikaluri and Producer, co-writer Andy Sophocleous about the movie that has been described as a “Kiwi Breaking Bad meets the Hangover” – and then some.

They are both industry pro’s and it shows – the film is a sharply paced giggle as well as a cautionary tale. Director Tim is originally from the Republic of Georgia whilst Andy has a multi disciplinary background and has worked as an actor and writer (he has written eight feature films, one of which has been in development with the NZ Film Commission).

In early 2009 the idea for ‘Crackheads’ was born.  It took three years of development to complete a shooting script and to raise the minimum amount of finance required to turn it into a motion picture. In mid 2012 it was shot on RED, fully crewed, over four six-day weeks in 40 locations and with 44 speaking roles. Phew.

Deemed too controversial for conventional cinemas, your movie debuted in New Zealand at the Maidment Theatre. Rialto however, has no qualms in showing it. Why do you think that is?

Andy: I think there are a few reasons to be honest. The film did win a New Zealand Film Award sponsored by Rialto Channel for starters, and while cinemas have very narrow ideas about what their audiences will accept, Rialto is more adventurous. The idea of a comedy about meth does initially put certain ideas into people’s heads, but it is still a film about how meth will ruin your life – just told through humour. A cinema chain could be put off by the ideas they think it might put in the audience’s mind I guess, and a lot of them are struggling at the moment so maybe don’t want to take risks.

Tim: I think it’s a competitive space and there are only a handful of distributors running the show. Some filmmakers strike a relationship with independent cinemas however, which we haven’t pursued to be honest.

Why the Maidment Theatre, did you have a connection there?

Tim: I had experience showing my short films in a self-arranged situation, and cinemas are often expensive. One of the crew told me that the Maidment had screened a couple of films so I gave them a call and they were quite enthusiastic. I also knew someone high up at Sony who wanted to promote a new projector and the two things merged together really well.

The film has been hailed as “the world’s first black comedy about crack”, can you verify that?

Andy: I think there are around 45,000 new films made every year so we can’t be 100 per cent sure… but it’s the first one that we know of.

How did you conduct research for the film: did you draw from personal experience, other’s stories that you had been told, family members, horror stories from the media?

Tim: I’m actually still lying on the couch in recovery from my own arduous addiction actually… (laughs). It was very expensive to be honest.

Andy: I never had a meth addiction but I was in a circle of people who were using it a lot at one point. I had a couple of very good friends who were never the same after they became addicted to the stuff. I have personally experienced the darker side of it in that way and I have certainly seen what it does.

Tim: I did quite a bit of reading on the subject, and interestingly at the time I started working on the project I was dating a girl who was doing a Master’s Degree on P use from a medical point of view. When she was studying and talking to me about the effects that it had on people it was my sense of humour to start to see the comedic potential in that.

So it was always going to be a comedy?

Andy: Yeah, to be honest it was. We had written a treatment on quite a serious subject earlier in the year that was optioned by Great Southern TV but we couldn’t stop making jokes about things. We thought we should probably write a comedy but on a subject that wasn’t immediately hilarious. For us the best comedy seems to be about adversity, and often the characters in really good ones are having the worst time in their lives. The audience can then experience that through humour.

When you mention comedy and adversity I immediately think of the work of Louis C.K., which can be almost harrowing to watch but absolutely hilarious.

Andy: Totally, there is always a truth in what he’s saying and I think that’s what makes it so funny. It was important to us to deliver the right message though, and that we didn’t in any way glorify meth. We do show that the characters are in decline, but through humour. It’s been said that approaching subjects like this with humour is far more effective at reaching the people who are at risk than trying to shock them. We know from cigarette packets that avoidance –based campaigns just don’t work.

Your key characters are Nick, (a conflicted and slightly racist Catholic Priest), Thomas (an OCD psychologist), Raj (an out-of-work Indian actor) and Jimmy (a sex-obsessed used car salesman). Did you deliberately go against the norm of what we assume the stereotypical meth addict to be?

Tim: I think so, I tried to imagine what would happen if someone as straight as the girlfriend I had at the time became a P addict. That contributed to the idea of the doctor, and then Andy said he wanted to be a priest when he was younger…

Andy: That is a total lie!

Tim: We really wanted to show that no one is safe, and that the demon that is addiction can sneak up on anyone. Also, we live in a multicultural society, so we needed a variety of races too.

Lastly, what are you both working on right now – are you working together?

Andy: We are working independently at the moment; I’m in Australia and slowly working on the film and how to get it out there.

Tim: And I’m working on a Film Commission project that is a complete departure from ‘Crackheads’, it’s a horror film.

So not a complete departure then? Meth is pretty horrible.

Tim: So true!


Screening Times:
10/12/2014 8:30pm
14/12/2014 11:05pm
15/12/2014 6:55am
09/01/2015 3:10pm