Storytellers

A “Top Hat Studios” FILM
WRITTEN BY Michael Lee

On a rainy afternoon, several travelers find themselves sitting together at an old wooden table. They only have one thing in common: they're all wandering in New Zealand.

To pass the time, they begin sharing food, wine, and stories - who they are, and where they came from. Bit by bit, their stories become increasingly fantastical. Each person's story takes on characteristics of stories and traditions of their own countries, intertwined with New Zealand's unique mythology. They speak of magic eggs, modern-day Orpheuses with enchanted guitars, fanged monsters, heroes and villains, spirits of the land, dead gods that walk the earth – strange and fantastical modern stories, whimsical and morbid, adventurous and fantastical. Stories that could never have happened.

Yet the stories interact with each other, as they find common themes and characters. And as they talk, they find the distinction between story and reality become increasingly blurred as fantastical events begin happening around them. What makes a story real? For every experience is a story, and all that matters is how you tell it…

New Zealand is a land of traveler – and also a land of myths. For every traveler brings a little bit of themselves into New Zealand, and leave a little something behind, and the country is woven together from the strands of stories. Storytellers is a uniquely New Zealand film that consists of several vastly different short, modern myths: stories that utilize tropes from fairy tales and mythology, with a good dose of New Zealand tradition. Each is unique in tone, and mix with each other to create a full story that explores the boundaries between fact and fiction.