Pietra Brettkelly explores uncharted waters in new film Crocodile

Brettkelly is getting a kick out of it, too. “It was like the buzz of great documentary work,” she texts me afterwards. “Lots of fun.”

Pietra Brettkelly becomes the centre of attention on Karangahape Rd. Photo / Dean Purcell

You’d never know it, but she’s typically more at home on the other end of the camera.

Based in Auckland, although rarely found here, the award-winning film-maker is an electric presence on the international festival circuit, known for her ability to sniff out a story in the most unlikely places.

It’s been said that the risks Brettkelly takes to make her films reflect either passion or craziness. The truth is she’s naturally inclined to both.

Over the past two decades, her intuitive style of storytelling has led her to places as far-flung as Libya, Afghanistan, China, New York, Tibet, the Arctic Circle and Sudan. Three of her documentaries have been submitted for Oscar contention.

Her latest project, Crocodile, is about a collective of young film-makers in Nigeria, where kidnappings are so common she didn’t stay in the same place for more than two nights in a row.

Filmed in their home city of Kaduna in northern Nigeria, The Critics’ sci-fi shorts have a cult following on YouTube. Photo / Crocodile Film Limited

On her most recent trip to Kaduna, the northern region had become so volatile that commercial airlines had withdrawn all flights into the city.

Travelling by car from the capital Abuja, she became stuck in a five-hour traffic jam after a truck rolled, blocking the road.

Helicopters dispatched by the Nigerian Air Force circled overhead in case of trouble and unidentified men armed with AK-47s patrolled up and down the highway.

Advised by her driver to stay in the car, she was sitting quietly in the back seat when one of the armed men rapped on the window, demanding to see her passport.

“Have you been kidnapped?” he asked her. “Not yet,” she replied.

As terrifying as it sounds, experiences like that seem to sit lightly on Brettkelly. She became such close friends with the fixer who helped her with on-the-ground arrangements when she started filming in Nigeria that he named his first baby after her.

In 2019, Brettkelly was named an Arts Foundation Laureate, receiving the Dame Gaylene Preston Award for Documentary Filmmakers – a $35,000 grant that helped finance Crocodile. Brettkelly is wearing a Sylvester jacket with fake-fur collar and Hailwood trousers. Photo / Dean Purcell

“I have seriously been born without fear in that regard and also without regret,” says Brettkelly.

“I’m really considered, though. I educate myself. I’m not reckless. Well, others would look at my life and say I’m reckless, but I’ve always known I wanted a life full of risk.”

Shot over 13 years, Crocodile had its world premiere in February in competition at the Berlinale Film Festival and has already picked up two international awards.

Showing here from August 2 as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival, it’s scheduled for a nationwide release early next year.

The Critics when Brettkelly first met them in 2019. Clockwise from left: Raymond Yusuff, Victor Josiah, Godwin Josiah, Ronald Yusuff, Richard Yusuff, Rachael Yusuff and Rejoice Josiah. Photo / Crocodile Film Limited

Plans are afoot to hold a screening in Nigeria, where the collective has now independently completed its first full-length drama.

Brettkelly’s curiosity was sparked by an article about these young kids shooting sci-fi shorts on one of their dads’ broken cellphones.

Calling themselves The Critics, they’d initially recorded critiques of Nigeria’s “Nollywood” movies before deciding they could make something better themselves. Their YouTube channel now has more than 110,000 subscribers.

Brettkelly’s previous documentary, Yellow is Forbidden, was an intimate portrait of Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei, creator of the iconic fur-trimmed yellow gown that went viral after Rihanna wore it to the Met Gala in 2017.

A decade before that, she’d filmed The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, on concept artist Vanessa Beecroft’s controversial attempts to adopt two orphaned babies in Sudan.

The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, 2008.

Something about The Critics’ story piqued her interest. “I don’t over-analyse why I react to something,” she says. “I just act on my instincts.”

At first, they ignored her when she tried to make contact through social media. Ironically, given Nigeria’s reputation for internet fraud, they thought it was some kind of scam.

“Eventually, Godwin got back to me, and I said I’d come over to meet them all and talk with everyone, which is what I do,” she says.

The director of photography she’d booked to come with her pulled out over security concerns on the day they were due to fly out.

At the time, there were nine core members of the collective, led by Godwin Josiah and his cousin Raymond Yusuff, with their brothers, sisters and other cousins as part of the crew.

When Brettkelly landed on their doorstep in 2019 and began recording, the youngest of them was 4. Only Godwin, then 18, was old enough to sign his own consent form.

Rachael Yusuff, one of the youngest members of The Critics, is now 16 and has finished high school. “She wants to be a lawyer and rule the world,” says Brettkelly, “and she will.” Photo / Crocodile Film Limited

Self-taught, the group had been making their quirky shorts from whatever they could cobble together since 2012 – devising the scripts, designing props and creating crazy special effects.

In one video, a character shoots lightning out of his fingers and then vanishes. In another, a giant bird snatches a boy having a pee and flies off with him in its claws.

It’s hard to explain just how ingenious these sci-fi videos are, given the circumstances in which they’ve been filmed.

Life in Kaduna, known as Crocodile City, is precarious. Homes without electricity rely on generators, and the power often goes out several times a day. Brettkelly says even people with jobs sometimes go for months without being paid.

The Critics set up a special effects “green screen” using whatever they have at hand. Photo / Crocodile Film Limited

Raymond, who is hospitalised at one stage, suffers from recurrent attacks of typhoid, which is endemic in Nigeria, and his family can’t afford the drugs to treat it.

Godwin lost his mother when he was young, and his father’s second wife, who appears in the film, died suddenly in her sleep. “These are all people younger than me,” says Brettkelly, “so there’s a real fragility there.”

The situation was complicated, too, because The Critics had done much of the filming in secret. Their parents, who didn’t see any future in it, thought they’d just been mucking about.

Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based creole, is widely spoken, making it easier to communicate with the families. However, its use has put traditional languages under threat.

The country’s history as a former British colony created an uncomfortable dynamic for Brettkelly, a Pākehā who grew up in Ōhope and has Irish heritage on her grandfather’s side.

“I’ve always known I wanted a life full of risk.” Brettkelly is wearing a Sylvester jacket with fake-fur collar and Hailwood trousers. Photo / Dean Purcell

While studying te reo Māori – “trying to be a better Tangata Tiriti [Treaty partner]” – she’d become interested in the reclamation of indigenous languages. Here was a group of young Africans using creativity to explore their own voice.

“Right from the start, I wanted to discuss that I was this white woman, turning up on their doorstep,” she says.

“I remember we were all chatting on the first day and I said I was thinking I could commission them to make a short film, maybe with me playing a great white monster.

“There was this silence around the room and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve gone too far, too quickly. These people don’t even know me and I’m making these crazy proposals.’ But they were just really open to me.”

There’s a fabulous shot of Brettkelly flanked by five of The Critics, snappily dressed for the red carpet at Crocodile’s Berlin premiere. All four screenings had sold out within 15 minutes of the tickets going live.

Six days earlier, she’d been down in Wellington at Park Road Post Production, making final touches to the film.

On the red carpet in Berlin for Crocodile’s world premiere. From left: Richard Yusuff, Ronald Yusuff, Godwin Josiah, Pietra Brettkelly, Victor Josiah and Raymond Yusuff.

In Berlin, it was -8C outside, but Brettkelly looks glamorous in floaty harem-style Trelise Cooper trousers and a vintage off-the-shoulder dress made by her mother, Madeleine.

The young men alongside her weren’t only Crocodile‘s on-screen stars; they had also become collaborators in the deepest sense of the word.

In the credits, The Critics share equal billing with Brettkelly as director and producer. The collective also has 50% ownership of the film and will receive half of any profits.

This kind of arrangement is so rare in documentary-making that she struggled to find advice on exactly how such a contract should be drawn up.

To ensure full transparency, she gave them money to consult a lawyer independently before they signed.

Chelsea Winstanley (Jojo Rabbit) came on board early as executive producer. However, others in the film industry here struggled with the concept and warned her against relinquishing control.

“One film-maker told me to be really careful about what theymight do,” says Brettkelly, who has the sole writer credit and handled post-production.

“This othering, it’s exactly what I don’t want to be a part of, because as documentary makers, if we’re honest, we’re colonisers. Largely, the practice is to go in and capture a story and then take it away.”

The core members of The Critics in 2024, seven years on from when Brettkelly began working with them. From bottom left: Richard Yusuff, Ronald Yusuff, Godwin Josiah, Raymond Yusuff and Victor Josiah. Photo / Clan Yujo Limited

When borders closed during the Covid pandemic, Brettkelly ran weekly Zoom sessions with The Critics to teach them about the art of documentary making so they could keep filming without her.

By then, they’d graduated from cellphones to proper camera gear, donated by science-fiction director J.J. Abrams, who’d seen their work.

For two years, Brettkelly paid the collective a monthly fee. “They chose what to film, where to put the camera, and who to focus the camera on,” she says. “That’s directing, for sure.”

In recognition of their work, The Critics also received a $1000 story fee for every minute of footage from their video clips that were used in the documentary.

The editing process took two and a half years. Finally, in 2024, Brettkelly travelled back to Kaduna to show them a rough cut.

“It was really emotional. We talked and talked and then we watched it again the next day.”

There are some dark and challenging moments in Crocodile, including strains that develop in the relationship between Godwin and Raymond, and one devastating turn of events that causes a serious rupture in the group.

The collective has now consolidated into a core team of four, running after-school programmes and internships to train local talent for their film crews.

Brettkelly, wearing a dress by Hailwood, struts through St Kevin’s Arcade. Photo / Dean Purcell

Despite the different worlds they inhabit, Brettkelly and The Critics are kindred spirits in many ways.

A law school dropout who switched to journalism (and didn’t complete that course, either), she’s never been to film school and long ago gave up the stability of a regular income. So much of her life is spent on the road that she hasn’t lived in her Auckland apartment for the past seven years.

In 2019, she was named an Arts Foundation Laureate, receiving the Dame Gaylene Preston Award for Documentary Filmmakers – a $35,000 grant that helped finance Crocodile.

“As creators, we all make huge sacrifices, but I’ve never thought of it that way,” she says. “I love every single day, even the really tough days. I’m exactly in the life that I wanted.”

Crocodile opens in Auckland on August 2 at the New Zealand International Film Festival, followed by screenings in Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin. For the full festival programme, see nziff.co.nz

Joanna Wane is a senior lifestyle writer with an interest in social issues and the arts.