Final Cut Of ‘Mr Pip’ Premieres In Auckland A Year After Its Toronto Screening [VIDEO]

“Mr Pip” has premiered again in New Zealand on Tuesday. The final cut of the film, adapted from the novel of the same name by Kiwi author Lloyd Jones, has been unveiled at the Auckland Museum exactly a year after it was shown in Toronto.

The film, shot in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea and in various locations in New Zealand, tells the story of a young girl named Matilda who is caught in the throes of war on Bougainville in the early ‘90s, with her connection with the fictional character Pip from Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” helping her survive.

It stars Hugh Laurie, and is directed by Andrew Adamson.

The first cut of the film was shown at the Toronto Film Festival in 2012. Unfortunately, the reviews ranged from mixed to negative. So Adamson worked on the film again to put the final touches based on the criticisms it received.

“I never expected it to be a final cut, but I didn’t expect to be working on it for another year!” he told TVNZ. “It was a really good learning experience.”

The film spent 12 months in post-production, and Anderson said the new cut, shown for the first time at the Auckland Museum on Tuesday, is now more accessible.

“It was more brutal than it is now and that was too much for some people. It was longer and it felt like it needed to be condensed,” he said.

“And there was context and clarity that I felt we needed to work on.”

“Mr Pip” will be shown to the general audience in New Zealand on October 3 and then will be released in Australia, as per One News. Depending on how the film fares in the two countries, the filmmaker hopes that it will also get international release.

The book on which the film was based was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007, and had won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

See the trailer here: