A film project left dormant in a drawer has been dusted off and is moving into the moonlight. Local film maker Stef Harris is preparing to roll camera on his new feature-length film, Blood Moon, in January 2026.
The multifaceted Motueka police officer splits his time between highway patrol work and crafting novels and film scripts. His previous works include feature films The Waimate Conspiracy, No Petrol, No Diesel!, and the award-winning thriller Blue Moon, as well as several novels, the most recent being Double Jeopardy and The Girl From Sarajevo.
The last feature-length project was in 2018, and Stef says his friends have been pushing him for a new one.
Blood Moon – which despite the name is not a Blue Moon sequel – has been “in the cupboard for a while”, and filming will commence in early January. He has worked with the same core cast and crew for many of his projects, first working with one of the film’s two lead actors, Mark Hadlow, when Stef was in his late teens and Mark in his early 20s.
The film will be shot in an intimate, character-driven “chamber” style, filmed entirely in one place, with no flashbacks or action sequences. This is partly due to the “micro-budget”, Stef says, but also a deliberate creative choice.
“We’re once again making a movie for the price of a second-hand car but, interestingly enough, it does sharpen the mind. It does become a style of filmmaking of its own, because of the limitations, because of the restrictions.”
His preference is making intellectual films, judging their success by how long viewers keep discussing them afterwards.
“I can’t have any car crashes or helicopters. This is the challenge of course – how can I make it interesting?”
Stef’s works, be they films or novels, always manage a twist in the tale, with characters whose humanity increases even as their morality subsides, and plots that leave audiences satisfied yet a little sideswiped.
The writer/producer reckons he has found a good location for the set – a disused hop shed up the Motueka Valley.
Next comes the challenge of securing accommodation during the area’s peak season for his two leads, Mark and local acting alumni Douglas Brooks.
Stef is hoping to pin down about 10 days from January 12 in a micro-budget-friendly two-bedroom house, where the pair can rehearse together and fine-tune their performances. As before, the crew will also be taking on three or four youth interns to help behind the scenes.
A rough cut of Blood Moon will be sent to the New Zealand Film Festival, where Stef hopes that – as per his previous projects – the film commission accepts it and provides funding for post-production elements such as editing, music and titles. He expects the project to be completed by August 2026.
Meanwhile, Stef has a six-minute short film showing in the national Show Me Shorts Film Festival, which has its Nelson screenings at the Suter Theatre on Saturday, 16 and Sunday, 17 October. His work, Sister Josephine, features an eight-year-old boy, a nun and two pairs of boxing gloves, and is a true story from his own childhood.
