This Town is being billed as 2020’s feel good Kiwi comedy movie, but Amanda Thompson finds it a gentle romcom with a heart of surprisingly confronting darkness. Movies about rural New Zealand are going to be funny, either intentionally or unintentionally. It’s a funny place and we’re funny people, and New Zealanders are so good … Read more
Director Slavko Martinov brings his eye for social critique to Christchurch’s Poultry, Bantam, and Pigeon Club in the dramatic, uplifting flockumentary Pecking Order. “There’s a big difference between backyard poultry and exhibiting,” says Beth Inwood, the treasurer of Christchurch’s Poultry, Bantam, and Pigeon Club. I have no idea what “backyard poultry” is, but over the … Read more
Professor Leonie Pihama on the unique values and perspective filmmaker Merata Mita brought to the screen, and how it changed how we see ourselves. “The way I see it, if you’re a Māori woman and that’s all you are, that alone will put you on a collision course with, that society and its expectations. And … Read more
Merata Mita created groundbreaking films during some of the most divisive moments in New Zealand history, earning her a reputation as a pioneer overseas and a trouble maker at home. Nine years after her death, her son Hepi Mita has made a documentary about the immense legacy she left behind. Hepi Mita (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāi … Read more
Film is a powerful influence in our lives that shapes how we see the world, and how we see ourselves. So it’s pretty important that we see people that look like us up on the big screen. New Zealand has an incredible film history – dark, funny, innovative, evocative of our past and peculiar worldview. … Read more
Activist, actor and advocate Anzac Wallace has passed away yesterday at the age of 74. Anzac Wallace (Ngāpuhi) is lying in state at Ngā Whare Waatea marae in Māngere, the urban marae he helped build in the 1980s. Ngā Whare Waatea chairman, Minister Willie Jackson paid tribute to Matua Zac Wallace last night, describing him … Read more
In cinemas now, Vai tells the story of one woman’s life through eight ten-minute shorts, directed by nine Pacific women. At the Auckland premiere of Vai at Sylvia Park, dozens of attendees line up at the candy bar to buy a drink for the film. After paying, they then continued into the theatre where they discovered … Read more
New Zealand’s film industry has always been about location, location, location, but what about everything else? What about all the stuff that comes after filming? Jihee Junn talks to Department of Post’s Katie Hinsen at the company’s new state-of-the-art headquarters about her mission to make Auckland into a post-production powerhouse. For much of late 2016, … Read more
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and yet here we are at the end of another week of being asked to prove racism exists. I have reason to believe the recent gale-force winds were caused by all the people of colour in New Zealand sighing at the … Read more
Filmmaker Kath Akuhata-Brown looks at the unique challenges of making Waru, a film directed by eight Māori women. Beneath the yelling and screaming of our recent general election, as child poverty was being turned into a political platform, a group of Māori filmmakers quietly went about the task of drawing attention to the issue in … Read more
The film festival starts in Auckland on Thursday and follows soon after in other centres. Simon Wilson wanted to write about all the films he was keen on seeing but we told him that would fill up the internet, so here’s his restrained response: ten films and five tips. Five good things to do at … Read more
Undertaking the yearly challenge that is digesting the New Zealand International Film Festival line-up, Alex Casey from The Spinoff and Steve Newall from Flicks team up with notorious film festival fan Matthew Crawley to chew over the 2016 programme. Every. Last. Word of it. With their new mate Terry that they picked up in a … Read more
Once Were Warriors, released in 1994, shocked the world with brutal scenes of domestic violence, suicide and rape. As director Lee Tamahori prepares for the release of his first New Zealand film since that break-out hit, Elizabeth Beattie looks back at the New Zealand it depicted and asks, how much has really changed? Trigger Warning: … Read more
In 2013 Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith moved to the small Waikato town of Reporoa to shoot a documentary about the local club rugby team. One year later they emerged with a stunning meditation on what it is to be a farmer, a teammate and a man in rural New Zealand. Don Rowe talks to … Read more