Raising the barre

Why acclaimed Kiwi director James Napier Robertson-took on the bruising true story of an American ballerina in Russia.

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

Making ballet movies isn't for sissies. Especially Russian ballet movies. That's what James Napier Robertson found on Joika, the director's first foreign foray after his three New Zealand features, which included 2014's great The Dark Horse.

His new film, the first NZ-Poland co-production, was mostly filmed in Warsaw but assembled here. It's the true-life story of American ballerina Joy Womack, who, as a gifted teenage dancer, arrived in Moscow as an unwelcome outsider in the world of Russian ballet. The film stars Diane Kruger as her ballet mistress at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. It's a riveting, visually spectacular drama that isn't just for dance aficionados.

Napier Robertson wrote the film after his American management pitched him a script that Womack wasn't happy with. "They were really movie-ing it up and trying to Hollywoodise it and I didn't want to do that." He flew to the US and met Womack, who told him her story over three days. He said to her: "I want to be quite gritty, and dark and uncomfortable but also beautiful and somehow try to capture why you would love ballet so much, for an audience that doesn't know anything about it.

When I phrased it like that, it seemed like it was a bit of a breath of fresh air for her." That first meeting was in 2016. Eight years later, as the film finally reaches NZ cinemas, Napier Robertson says the filmmaking experience left him mildly traumatised.