‘Uproar’ co-directors Paul Middleditch and Hamish Bennett find the universal in a culturally specific story

Uproar might be a personal story for co-director Paul Middleditch – its inspiration lies in his own teenage years as a creative kid at a rugby-obsessed Catholic school in Wellington – but it was his intention from the outset to lean into the film’s universal themes.

The coming-of-age comedy drama, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, is set in Dunedin of 1981, with New Zealand divided by the arrival of the South African Springboks rugby team, sparking nationwide protests about apa...