White Lies [Soundtrack]

White Lies is a single piece of music for piano, taonga puoro and strings composed by John Psathas. The music was written for the film White Lies, directed by Dana Rotberg and released by South Pacific Pictures. The story is based on the novella Medicine Woman by Witi Ihimaera, and stars Rattle recording artist Whirimako Black as Paraiti, one of the three central characters.

This is John's second outing as a film composer following his acclaimed score for Good For Nothing in 2010, notably from American film critic Leonard Maltin, who singled-out John's score as being particularly impressive.

When John saw the film for the first time, he knew immediately that he could bring something to it. "John brought an exquisite emotional understanding not only of the film, and not only of the characters but also of the two cultural sources that feed our drama," says Dana Rotberg. "He was wise enough to allow the space of the Māori traditional sounds to tell their story and then hand over when it was needed to the occidental white Pākehā cultural territory of music, which is a very difficult thing and he did it with discretion, with respect and with amazing talent. I think he brought another layer of drama and emotional texture to the film and he made the film fly."