A still from the apocalyptic movie Ice, which never screened in NZ despite being made here with a government subsidy.

It was an Apocalypse Now for the northern hemisphere. But it all happened in Central Otago five years ago.

Sam Neill was the bad guy on location for an international thriller that was filmed just along the road from the Gibbston Valley vineyard where he lives and produces his internationally acclaimed pinot noir wine.

Also starring in the movie were True Blood's Stephen Moyer, Australian Richard Roxburgh, most recently on New Zealand television in Rake, and English actor Clare Forlani, best known for parts in Mallrats and Meet Joe Black.

In Ice, Neill demands, against the protestations of environmentalists, that oil drilling, which is causing the Arctic ice shelf to melt, should continue in Greenland. "Any qualms you might have now are a drop in the ocean if we run out of oil," he angrily declares.

But it was not the oil that ran dry. Production of Ice, a screen adaption of the James Follett novel of the same name, hit problems when the company behind the movie, British production house Power, ran out of money and was placed in administration.

Power departed the scene, leaving its New Zealand co-production partner Screentime Productions holding a partly-completed but badly-soiled $21.5m baby.

Five years on and the bad smell from Ice still lingers.

The production, which employed several hundred New Zealand actors and crew and involved a $14.5 million spend in this country, was finished thanks to a completion bond taken out with a US bank. It was then released to cinemas in the more than 100 territories that had signed sales or license agreements with Power before its demise.

For New Zealand, though, this was a story with an expensive and unsatisfactory ending.

With the completion of the film the New Zealand Government handed over $4.1 million to the Power administrators. The money was paid under the New Zealand film incentive scheme that guarantees reimbursement of a percentage of money spent in New Zealand on movie productions.

The barbed twist to the tale of Ice is that a movie made in New Zealand by New Zealanders and which received $4.1m of Government money has, five years after its release internationally, not been screened in New Zealand and cannot be screened here, because of licensing and distribution issues. And until now, detail of this situation hasn't been made public, either by the local production company Screentime or the New Zealand Film Commission which oversees the incentive scheme.

Sam Neill, in a concise statement, called the scenario around Ice: "Not a happy story altogether."

Screentime's managing director Philly de Lacy said the situation was "complex" and was still being resolved.

"It is frustrating for everybody," she said. "We want our work shown. We make projects because we want audiences to see them. To be honest it is devastating really, and it is still costing us money."

Screentime was caught out when Power was put in administration, she said. The New Zealand company had got in to bed with the UK production company which had a good reputation, after Screentime Australia had been involved in several successful projects with Power. Ice was not the only international production that was caught in Power's administration, de Lacy said.

"We couldn't foresee that Power was going to fall over, and they certainly gave us no indication that they were going to fall over, and they just disappeared," said de Lacy.

The completion bond, an insurance type arrangement, allowed Screentime to continue the production, to edit the movie and to deliver it to the 65 distributors that had bought the rights to the movie. Ice was then handed to the US bank that now holds the rights to Power's productions. It is currently sitting on the shelf in the US and de Lacy said she is in regular contact with the bank trying to arrange for the rights to be cleared.

There had been plans for the movie to be screened in New Zealand before Power went in to administration. But no contracts had been signed. As a result, when the banks moved in on Power, Screentime was unable to secure the right to have the film screened here.

The film, which runs just over two hours, is now unlikely to be released in New Zealand though it could be released on DVD.

deLacey was, however, hopeful that a two part television mini-series cut of the movie, with each part 90 minutes long, would be screened on one of the television networks.

New Zealand Film Commission's Dave Gibson agrees. "Realistically, it is unlikely that the film would be played five years later," he said. "That would require quite a substantial financial investment for someone to distribute it. They would have to probably spend somewhere north of $100,000 to $200,000 on an advertising campaign."

Gibson said he believed Screentime had been caught in a situation that "was outside their control".

"If they came back to the Film Commission to work on another project we wouldn't have issues with them," he said. "We we respect they are one of the major production companies here. It really was one of those quirks of things that happen every now and then."

It was the only project part-funded by the incentive scheme that had got in to trouble, and "even with that (Power going in to administration) it is a pretty good result. The project got finished and people got paid," Gibson said.

According to de Lacy, Ice, despite its problems, was of significant economic benefit to New Zealand, with a significant number of local actors and production crew and support staff all employed and paid.

"The production company was the only one that suffered," she said.

The incentive scheme was good for the New Zealand film industry which was currently buoyant. The scheme was part of a package that included locations, crews and actors that made New Zealand "really competitive internationally".

GOVERNMENT MONEY FOR FILMS

Films under production accessing the incentive are:

Hunt for the Wilderpeople starring Sam Neill. Directed by Taika Waititi of Boy and What we do in the Shadows.

The Patriarch from the Witi Ihimaera book, Bulibasha, directed and produced from the Once were Warriors team, Lee Tamahori and Robin Scholes.

Born to Dance starring Stan Walker with choreography by NZ's Parris Goebel. New Zealand's first dance movie.

25 April, animated documentary about the Gallipoli experience from award-winning filmmaker team, Leanne Pooley and Matthew Metcalfe.

Recent films that have accessed the New Zealand Screen Production Grant incentive include The Dark Horse, The Dead Lands, Slow West and Beyond the Edge.