For a country mad about rugby, very few films have ever been made about it. The Ground We Won is a visually beautiful, moving, funny and confronting documentary that captures a year in the life of the Reporoa rugby team.

It’s the work of director Christopher Pryor and producer Miriam Smith, an award-winning husband and wife filmmaking team, who have this innate ability to capture who we are as New Zealanders on screen. Their films are authentic and allow the subjects to speak for themselves, have a cinematic aesthetic, and say so much more about life in New Zealand than you first realise. The Ground We Won might be a film based around a rugby team, but it’s just as much a film about life on the land, friendship, growing up and male identity.

The Ground We Won premiered in April 2015 during the NZ International Film Festival’s autumn series, and was described as "visually ravishing" (The Herald's Peter Calder), "strikingly beautiful" (Metro) and "pure social-commentary gold" (The Listener).

It truly is a must see.

Director Christopher Pryor kindly took the time to have a chat about the film.  

Rialto: What drew you to Reporoa, and why did you choose a rural setting to explore the culture of rugby?

CP: The project began as an attempt, by us ‘rugby outsiders’, to understand why rugby plays such an important part in New Zealand culture - and more specifically, what part it plays in defining masculinity in our culture. We (’we’ being my filmmaking partner and wife Miriam Smith), felt that is was important to explore this in the rural setting, as opposed to the city, as it’s here that so much of the mythology that surrounds rugby originated. Many of the values and expectations of Rugby (can I say rugby with a capital R?) are linked to those values and expectations of the pioneering farming communities from which the game developed. Being a stark contrast to today’s commercialism of sport, we were very interested to see what, if any, of the mythology could be found alive today.

We happened to be driving through the dairy farming heartland of Reporoa as we were completing our last film (How Far is Heaven), when we saw the Reporoa rugby club from the road. We decided we had to go back and meet the team - which we did. And we weren't disappointed!

Rialto: Three main characters emerge – Peanut, Kelvin and Broomy – when did you know they would be the teammates you’d focus on?

CP: Kelvin and Peanut were among the first of the team members we meet during our research trips, and we knew immediately that these two would be central to the film we wanted to make. One of my first memories of meeting Kelvin was hearing him say, “I always thought someone should make a film about us”. Broomy hadn’t been playing that year, so it wasn’t until we’d began shooting the film that we met him. Of course the whole team were stars in their own right, but we settled on these three largely because, for us, they represented three different ‘stages of manhood’ in our study of masculinity. Peanut being the youngest, has the challenge of proving himself amongst the other men - while Broomy, the ‘life-of-the-party’, is also at the time in his life where he’s taking on more responsibility for the family farm - and Kelvin, one of the most senior players in the team, seeks to pass on his knowledge to the next generation of players.

Rialto: You filmed in Reporoa for a year, how much footage did you shoot and how easy was it crafting it into The Ground We Won?

CP: We ended up with around 200 hours of footage. The general shape of the film came together quickly, but it took ages to refine it (about a year), as the smallest changes could have large consequences to tone, mood and general coherence. The hardest part was, as always, having to exclude all the amazing moments that you’ve captured but don’t belong it the film - heartbreaking stuff!

Rialto: Why did you decide to shoot in black and white?

We decided to shoot the film in black & white for a number of reasons. First of all, it was about evoking a sense of timelessness. What you see unfold in the film, both on the rugby field and on the farm, happens not only in the present moment, but could well have happened decades ago. It’s an allusion to the historical, and also the mythological. Another important reason for filming in black & white was that we wanted to distinguish the film from the flood of rugby related images we all receive on a daily basis in the media. We wanted to look at this subject in a different light, we wanted to communicate to the audience our wishes that they too look at this overly familiar subject from a different perspective. I simply do not think we could have ever made this film in colour.

Rialto: You self-distributed How Far is Heaven – did you tackle that job again with The Ground We Won? What’s the appeal of self-distribution?

CP: Yes, we self-distributed The Ground We Won in cinemas across New Zealand. You have a tremendous sense of agency by taking this approach, but it’s not for the faint hearted - it involves a huge amount of work and risk, and it all comes just when you’re at your most exhausted (having just completed the film). We honed some skills and gained a lot of experience through self-distributing How Far is Heaven, but it really was thanks to our outstanding publicists at Trigger Marketing & Publicity that the film’s release was the success that is was.

Rialto: What was the response like in Reporoa to the film?

We first screened the film off a little projector to the guys at the Reporoa Rugby Club just before we completed the editing. We were nervous, they were nervous - but the response was wonderful! Which, after all that filming, and all that editing, was a tremendous relief. We just wish we’d recorded that first response, as it would have made for a hilariously entertaining DVD commentary track. We were so pleased that the guys felt we represented them and their world accurately, authentically. That said, there were a few requests for a more X-rated version…

Rialto: Do you and Miriam still regard yourselves as ‘rugby outsiders’, or have you developed a fondness for the game and all it entails?

We are now, of course, huge Reporoa supporters, and can appreciate the game itself much more - particular at the grass-roots level. Personally I have a deeper understanding of what positive contribution the game offers an individual or community - and at the same time seeing where there might be room for some changes.

Rialto: And finally, what fabulous new project are you currently working on?

Though we’re certainly not giving up on documentary, we’re very excited to be working on some scripted-drama projects. We hope to retain something of that bottled-lightning feeling that comes with documentary making, and at the same time knowing what the ending is going to be before we start filming...