Project Detail

In My Father's Den

Synopsis

Paul (Matthew Macfadyen), a prize-winning war journalist, returns to his remote New Zealand hometown on the death of his father, battle-scarred and world-weary. For the discontented sixteen-year-old Celia (Emily Barclay) he opens up a world she has only dreamed of. She actively pursues a friendship with him, fascinated by his cynicism and experience of the world beyond her small-town existence.

But many, including the members of both their families, frown upon the friendship and when Celia goes missing, Paul becomes the increasingly loathed and persecuted prime suspect in her disappearance. As the violent and urgent truth gradually emerges, Paul is forced to confront the family tragedy and betrayal that he ran from as a youth, and to face the grievous consequences of silence and secrecy that has surrounded his entire adult life. 

Details

Year
2005
Type of project
Features
Running time
126 mins
Format
35mm
Director
Brad McGann 1st Feature
Producer
Sue Bruce Smith, James Mitchell, Paul Trijbits, Jim Reeve, Steve Robbins
Co-Producer
Sue Bruce Smith, James Mitchell, Paul Trijbits, Jim Reeve, Steve Robbins
Editor
Chris Plummer
Screenwriter
Brad McGann
Director of Photography
Stuart Dryburgh
Sound
Richard Flynn
Composer
Simon Boswell
Principal cast
Matthew Macfadyen, Miranda Otto, Emily Barclay, Colin Moy

Genre

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

Little Bird

9 Grafton Mews
London W1T 5HZ
UK

T+44 (0)20 7380 3980

info@littlebird.co.uk

THE Film

35 High Street, Level 6
Auckland 1001, New Zealand

T+64 9 307 0036

the@iconz.co.nz

Sales Company

New Zealand Film

6001 Wellington, New Zealand

T+64 4 382 8364

marketing@nzfilm.co.nz

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

A transmasc driver sits in their car staring out of the window Dread

Director: Gabe Gabriel, Loren Loubser

Year: 2026

Soft-spoken transmasc driver, Toni, is used to dealing with an array of strange customers in their day-to-day work transporting locals and tourists through the economically divided City of Cape Town in their late father’s vintage Daimler. But when Claudia, a German digital nomad with blonde dreadlocks, offloads a traumatic story on a short ride across town, Toni’s car becomes dangerously possessed with Claudia’s invisible trauma demon. Inside Out Film Festival 2026 Wicked Queer: Boston's LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2026

A disturbed looking man stares straight into the camera Welcome

Director: Maryam Hamidi

Year: 2026

A famous Black actor accepts a role in a lucrative government film, but when he learns he’s starring in a welcome video for a British Internment camp, he is confronted by the devastating cost of his political indifference.

A nun staring off screen at a commotion. The Country

Director: Ella Grace Kennedy

Year: 2026

In an extremist religious commune where masturbation is deemed murder, a teenage boy struggles under the harsh laws imposed upon men. Assigned to work in the communal laundry wash, he must continue to adhere to the doctrine of ‘No Reckless Abandonment’, even as doubt and fear threaten to consume him.