Filming for a new action comedy is starting in the Bay of Plenty town of Te Puke.

Photo: PHOTO NZ

The Z Nail Gang is about a community coming together to defy the government and a multi-national mining company.

The film is based loosely on the anti-mining movement on the Coromandel Peninsula during the 1980s and 1990s.

Writer and director Anton Steel says the theme is relevant to what is now going on around the country.

He hopes the film will be finished in time for the New Zealand International Film Festival in July.