LEE TAMAHORI (Director) made his feature directorial debut with Once Were Warriors, a powerful and affecting story of a contemporary Maori family in urban New Zealand. The film, based on Alan Duff’s highly controversial bestselling novel of the same name, went on to become the highest-grossing film in New Zealand’s history, surpassing The Piano and Jurassic Park.
Tamahori’s first American feature was Mulholland Falls, a gritty and powerful crime drama starring Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Jennifer Connelly, Andrew McCarthy and John Malkovich. Mulholland Falls is about four no-nonsense cops nicknamed "the hat squad" who formed an elite unit of the Los Angeles Police Department in the early 1950’s.
Tamahori joined the New Zealand film industry in the late 1970’s, becoming an assistant director in the early 1980’s. A multi-award winning commercial director, he began directing commercials ten years ago and has since directed over a hundred spots, winning such television commercial awards as a Mobius (USA), Facts (Australia) and Axis (New Zealand).
Tamahori’s second American feature film as director, The Edge, was released in 1997. Written by David Mamet, produced by Art Linson, and starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, the contemporary drama was filmed on location in Alberta, Canada.
Tamahori’s latest feature, Along Came A Spider, was released in 2001 and is another installment of the Alex Cross detective thrillers written by James Patterson.
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