The official trailer has been unveiled for CATERPILLAR, the debut feature from award-winning New Zealand actor and filmmaker Chelsie Preston Crayford.
Set in Wellington in 2003, CATERPILLAR is a moving, multi-generational drama about three women living under one roof as the delicate balance of their family begins to unravel.
When a grandmother’s mind starts to fail, a teenage girl and her single-mother filmmaker are drawn into a journey that will redefine love, responsibility and what it means to let go.
The film stars Marta Dusseldorp (Bay of Fires, A Place to Call Home), RADA-trained screen and stage icon Lisa Harrow (The Last Days of Chez Nous, The Brokenwood Mysteries), and Anais Shand (Mystic, The Shannara Chronicles), delivering powerful performances across three pivotal stages of womanhood.
CATERPILLAR marks Preston Crayford’s move into feature filmmaking, building on her award-winning short films Here Now, Imposter and Falling Up.
While inspired by her own maternal line, CATERPILLAR is not autobiographical. Chelsie Preston Crayford describes the film as a story about women navigating change – individually and collectively.
The film is a work of autofiction.
“It’s inspired by my experience of growing up in a matriarchy, but the story isn’t factual. It’s a fable about three very different women muddling through three very pivotal life stages with everyone’s needs colliding. You could describe it as a coming of age for an entire maternal line.”
Anchored in deeply recognisable family dynamics, CATERPILLAR explores relationships that feel intimate and familiar, inviting audiences to see themselves on screen and to have a laugh and a cry along the way.
CATERPILLAR will be released theatrically in New Zealand on the 14th of May, 2026.
