Alison Jones tells how the story of a mentally ill Maori who thought he was a son of God came to be filmed.

Back in the 1980s a psychiatric patient called Arthur used to claim that he was the second son of God.

The pronouncements by the charismatic Maori were largely ignored, seen as just another delusion of his mental illness.

Mike Riddell encountered Arthur after founding a housing trust for people with mental health issues in Auckland, New Zealand. An activist who also trained as a minister, Mike’s colourful CV includes a spell in a Moroccan prison for drug offences as well as arrests for anti-apartheid protests. His conversations with Arthur inspired him to write his first novel, The Insatiable Moon.

The central character of the novel is also self-proclaimed second son of God, and a regular at a boarding house for the mentally ill and homeless which is under threat of closure. However, this Arthur not only has a vision of a just and caring society but also seems to possess the ability to pull off the miraculous.

“The creative spark for the book was Arthur asking me to tell the world he was the second son of God The licence to do it came after he died of renal failure as a side effect of his medication,” said Mike.

An option was taken on the novel by Blue Hippo Media, based in Fazeley Street, Birmingham, to turn it into a full length feature. The company had previously worked on music videos, documentaries and charity projects.

The resulting film received a special premiere for Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, who supported its highlighting of the stigma faced by people with mental health problems.

The premiere was attended by Mike, who also wrote the screenplay, his wife Rosemary who directed it, and Rawiri Paratene, the star of the award-winning Whale Rider, who was cast as Arthur.

“As a writer I tend to steer away from messages but I hope that the film opens the audience’s eyes to the world that exists that most people don’t have anything to do with,” said Mike.

“I hope they recognise the humanity of people who might appear different from them.

“This is a hope I have irrespective of the film, that people will see difference not as a thing that is scary or frightening but as an invitation to engage.”

His wife Rosemary stepped into the director’s role after the first director dropped out.

She is actually a District Court Judge but has a background in acting and theatre directing, both before and after retraining as a lawyer.

“I became involved because the big budget fell over and the British director felt it was not possible to make a movie on less than a million New Zealand dollars,” she said. “He just felt it was going out of his comfort zone. I stepped into the breach a couple of months before we started filming.

“I was pretty scared at first but it was a story I knew intimately and I had some strong ideas about how it should be filmed, though I hadn’t thought it would be me doing it.

“We actually made it for NZ$360,000 and with post production it came in at just under half a million. We filmed for five weeks and it went well. That wasn’t accidental, it had the co-operation of those who wanted to see it made...and a lot of people haven’t been paid yet.