In rural New Zealand, fifteen-year-old Baby Teeth spends the day with her friends — the pack of rough-and-tumble boys she has grown up with. But today is not like the rest. When Baby Teeth unknowingly triggers a power game with the pack’s insecure alpha, Louie, his lighthearted dares soon grow in tension and danger. Determined to keep her place among the pack, Baby Teeth pushes past Louie’s pressures and meets each of his challenges. But with every win, Baby Teeth feels more lost. Frustrated, she fires her own test at Louie — a dangerous act that reveals everyone’s strengths, weaknesses, and loyalties. With newfound clarity and bravery, Baby Teeth draws the strength to choose herself. As the sun rises, a new path is revealed. Baby Teeth walks away from the pack and into herself.

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Pack Rat is a deeply intimate film inspired by the director's adolescence growing up in the rural Far North of Aotearoa New Zealand. Like the protagonist, she was very close to a group of boys, yet she was also kept slightly on the outside of their pack. In this position she found danger and freedom, loneliness and love. Pack Rat is a nostalgic and cathartic love/hate letter to this time in the director's life — a beautifully messy, awkward, insecure age of discovery and negotiation. While told through a coming-of-age narrative, she hopes Pack Rat speaks to a broad audience by exploring the universal dynamics of gender, power, belonging, and the growing pains of self-acceptance.

For the director, casting with Stu Turner and having the opportunity to collaborate with such a talented group of young actors was a huge production highlight. Pack Rat held an extensive casting call that brought in over 400 submissions from teens across Aotearoa New Zealand. After months of auditions, recalls and chemistry tests, their ensemble of 7 first-time teenage actors were cast. Their incredible lead DeeDee Comet, who plays Baby Teeth, was only 13 years old during production! Pack Rat was proudly made by a diverse production team and supported by the New Zealand Film Commission and Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production.