Five languages. Five stories. Five people. Crossing paths in one city on one day. On one VERY important day.
Eves' New Year (2008) Online
It is New Year's Eve in Auckland, New Zealand. Eva, a Filipino worker at the SkyCity Casino, just finished her shift. She calls her family in Manila but her wheelchair-bound Kiwi husband is not happy with their growing phone bills. Eve, a Parisian working in Auckland, is trying to contact her boyfriend through a phone booth. But her sister in Paris gets into a sticky situation making her use up her prepaid phone credits. Now she needs to find another phone card to connect with her boyfriend. Yves, an English student/wannabe rock star in Auckland, receives an unexpected phone call from his sister in Switzerland. Their parents are away on holiday and she needs to run their Cafe Vivendi all by herself as the waitress called in sick. She has no idea how to run it but Yves does. Ivo, the son of a powerful Colombian drug lord, is being taught a lesson by his father to not interfere with the family "business" again, until it is time. He wakes up in a rundown flat in Auckland with three ...
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
 | Yves S. Gmür | - | Yves |
| Jeanene Tracy | - | Woman |
 | Peter Rae | - | Frank Henderson |
| Robert-William Torckler | - | James |
| Ramesh Bedadala | - | Pradeep |
| Fiona Knellwolf | - | Natalie |
| Annabelle Velasco | - | Eva |
| Karolyne Cissé | - | Ève |
| Tainui Tukiwaho | - | Roy |
| Cyril Farrell | - | Dave / Casper the Clown |
| Jhake R. Wells | - | Gina |
| Christopher Macasiano | - | Biboy |
| Jonard Soringa | - | Allan |
| Vineesh Thadakamalla | - | Dairy Owner |
| Miguel Villagra | - | Ivo |
'Eves' New Year' was inspired by the directors' situation at that time. The three directors lived in Auckland, New Zealand away from their families in France, Philippines and Switzerland.
The four main crew members ('Jhake R. Wells', 'Yves S. Gmür', 'Karolyne Cisse' and 'Tagir Gainullin') met in film school in Auckland, New Zealand and decided to make their first independent feature film together. They even ended up sharing a flat together during the production of the film.
They used several languages in the film because each of the director can speak one foreign language other than English (French, Swiss-German, Tagalog).
Originally, the plan was to have four stories intertwined. The fourth story was supposed to be the 'Russian Story' from 'Tagir Gainullin', but no script was submitted until now. Hence, 'Jhake R. Wells' ended up writing the 'Colombian Story'.
The rock star character (Yves) was loosely based on 'Tagir Gainullin', one of the crew members. He owns two guitars but he can't play them yet. One of which was used as a prop in the film. Ironically, Tagir Gainullin's character in the film as the busker played the guitar very well.
'Miguel Villagra', who played the character of Ivo, was merely visiting Auckland on holiday. On shooting day, he informed the directors his flat got burgled, and he was no longer interested in coming to the rest of the shooting days. On the spot, 'Jhake R. Wells' had to rewrite the ending as well as shoot all his scenes within a two-hour period.
Vivaldi Cafe in St. Gallen, Switzerland is owned by 'Yves S. Gmür''s parents. His parents also acted in the film as the horseback riders and the woman in the sauna and the Health Inspector.
Jeanene Tracy, the woman in the Kiwi story, memorized all her lines which enabled the crew to shoot all her scenes in one take.
The French story was originally intended to be 25 minutes of the film but 'Karolyne Cisse' cut it down to 10 minutes in post-production.