The New Zealand International Film Festival is making its way to Tauranga.

One of the films being shown has been directed by Tauranga Boys' College old boy Eryn Wilson.

Eryn grew up in Papamoa and went to St Mary's Primary School where, he was in all the school plays and fell in love with the art.

In 1991, Eryn attended the BOP Academy of Performing Arts ran by local Tauranga tutors Peter Edwards, Yvonne Edwards and Richard Carey.

He appeared in many productions at the Tauranga Repertory Society and Tauranga Musical Theatre including West Side Story, Me and My Girl and Big River.

'I'm passionate about Tauranga as a feeding ground for artistic talent since many established household names hail from there like, Tim Balme, Shane Cortese, Zoe Crammond, Adam Murphy, Stu Turner and Erik Thomson,” says Eryn.

'It's lovely being able to return home with a film all these years later and give back a little to my local community. A community I know to be nuts about dogs.”

Eryn's film Dog's Best Friend is a sure fix for animal lovers and a valuable sketch for sceptics, this warm doco for the Kiwi director offers intimate access to an Aussie rehab centre for troubled dogs.

Eryn says that it took him and his crew around 18 months to shoot the documentary.

'We flew over to Sydney about six times, staying for about three to seven days at a time.”

Jacob, who the documentary is about, is an ex-military sniper who looks after dogs with issues or ones who have simply been left behind.

Running the dog psychology centre, Jacob has 27 dogs living on the property and only 15 are his.

Eryn says that people bring their dogs to Jacob to ‘fix' the ‘issues' with the animal but the actual owners never return.

To fund this project Eryn started a Kickstarter page which had over 300 people donate money to raising $34,000.

The documentary will be screened in Tauranga during the New Zealand International Film Festival.

There are two screenings only and the second one is nearly sold out.

To buy tickets or to view the trailer: https://www.nziff.co.nz/2018/tauranga/dogs-best-friend/