Belgium born; Bruno moved to New Zealand in 2006. Before “Zealandia”, Bruno directed two other award winning short films: “Serial Killer” (2008) and “Dangerous Game” (2019).
Bruno also worked as an Assistant Director on local and international productions such as “Hobbit Trilogy”, “Avatar”, “Ghost in the Shell” and “Mortal Engines”. http://www.imdb.me/brunodubois
Director Statement
Written and shot before the world crisis of the COVID-19, the film explores a possible outcome of a global pandemic.
Aline Tran (writer) started to develop the film during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. One of the themes of the film is what happens if a government uses a past pandemic as an excuse to push its countries’ culture too far with an obsession of maintaining purity and biosecurity. It also has larger themes, about the borders of the world and what constitutes a terrorist. Is the terrorist a person who tries to fight for a certain freedom by breaching the rules or is it the state that oppresses them and leaves them with no alternative?
I wanted the style of the film to be gritty & rough, almost in contradiction to the beauty of New Zealand landscapes. One of the inspirations was “Children of Men” from Alfonso Cuaron.
As the writer and Director of Photography is also my partner, we could literally think and develop the film almost 24/7. The baby in the film is our second child.
With Aline, we are developing a feature film (Sci-Fi) based on the short film Zealandia. I am also developing a drama following a man travelling to New Zealand to find back the love of his life he briefly met during WWII.