STARLIGHT HOTEL

It’s 1932 and rural New Zealand is in the midst of the Great Depression. Kate Marshall runs away from the care of her aunt and uncle to find her father in the city, hundreds of miles away. She is more than capable of looking after herself and is undaunted when thrown into contact with Patrick Dawson, who’s on the run from the police. The pair develop a bond of friendship and with the help of people along the way, a series of narrow escapes keeps them one step ahead of the police.

“...Starlight Hotel is a picaresque tale that charts the unlikely relationship that grows between a 13 year- old tearaway trying to find her father and a psychologically scarred survivor of World War I. For Pillsbury that relationship was the kernel of the film. ‘I wanted to show how two selfish people lose self- interest and begin to care. That’s a very small thing to make a movie about, but I wanted to see if I could make it work’” - (Brent Lewis, “A moving road movie”, New Zealand Listener, April 2, 1988)