International and NZ Film makers coming to town

International and NZ Film makers coming to town

Along with the largest number of films to date we have a stunning array of film makers traveling to Auckland to be part of the Festival.

Firstly, we have quite a few New Zealand film makers (details are included in the attached document) who are be attending their screenings and will be available for interviews through the festival – they are Helen Smyth (La Verdad), Alister Barry (A Civilised Society), Alex Greenhough & Elric Kane (Kissy Kissy), Michael Heath (Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows), Tony Hiles (Antonello & the Architect), Shirley Horrocks (The Comics Show & Questions for Mr Reynolds) and Taika Waititi (Eagle vs Shark). Taika availability for media is through Alena at Hoyts.

We also have some absolutely fascinating international filmmakers coming and I have attached a document with a bios, films and dates that the film makers will be in Auckland for media interviews etc. Below, I have put together a quick overview below of the international filmmakers:

1. Gary Hustwit, UK, Director, Helvetica is in Auckland from Friday 13 to Tuesday 17 July. 2007 is the 50th anniversary of the font HELVETICA! So! you might say but this insightful doco opens up our eyes to how this typeface has infiltrated our everyday lives and shaped the world we live in. The Helvetica font has silently achieved world domination and it is no wonder in 2007, this documentary has been made in its honour, MOMA, New York has specially curated a Helvetica exhibition and salutations from around the world flow for Helvetica.

2. Tony Ayres, Australia, Screenwriter/Director, The Home Song Stories will be available from Monday 16 to Thursday 19 July. The critically acclaimed Ayres has most recently won the Screenplay prize for his semi autobiographical work The Home Song Stories at the NSW 2007 Premier’s Literacy Awards in May 2007.

3. Chris Sivertson, USA, Director, The Lost in Auckland from Wednesday 18 to Friday 20 July. Sivertson is starting to make his mark in Hollywood; he recently completed a film with hell raiser Lindsey Lohan and is considered to be the name to watch for indie horror movies, his film The Lost is his directorial debut and part of our That’s Incredible Cinema section put together by Anthony Timpson.

4. Nick Bonner, UK, Producer, Crossing the Line arrives in Auckland from Friday 20 to Monday 23 July. Bonner offers fascinating insights into the secretive world of North Korea, one of few westerners who travels their frequently and has the trust of the Korean Government. Bonner also has a tour company that takes tourist into Northern Korea and China. The making of Crossing the Line was an exercise in patience, after six years of talks with North Korean officials they final got to meet and interview US defector Private James Dresnok. Dresnok had lived in North Korean for 40 years after walking across the demilitarised zone in 1962, since then he and 3 other defectors, forgotten by the west have gone on to become Korean citizens, married with families as well as film stars playing evil Americans.

5. Charles Burnett, Director/Screenplay/Photographer/Editor, Killer of Sheep will be available from Sunday 22 to Thursday 26 July. Burnett is considered to be “the most important black filmmaker this country (USA) has ever had”, awarded the MacArthur Foundation ‘genius” award, his film Killer of Sheep is included in the US Library of Congress Nation Film Registry of 100 essential films! Killer of Sheep is a stunning and moving masterpiece of working class black family in LA – a must see, don’t miss this opportunity to meet Charles Burnett.

6. Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland, USA, Directors/Screenplay, Quinceanera in Auckland from Monday 23 to Friday 27 July. Richard has established himself as an indie filmmaker & has also created some of America’s top reality TV shows such as Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model and MTV’s The Osbournes. Wash has made several acclaimed docos, features and TV shows as working in the adult film industry.

7. Amir Bar-Lev, USA Director, My Kid Could Paint That, in Auckland from Wednesday 25 to Sunday 29 July. Amir Bar-Lev’s My Kid Could Paint That documentary follows the life of a “pint-sized Pollock” Marla, a 4 year old whose pictures sell for $200,000 each! The media attention is huge; the impact on their family life intense and the doco asks the question “What is art?” until during the making of the documentary, TV’s 60 minute does an expose and turns the tables on Marla’s artwork and the family - ensuring everything changes…

We have just heard today - SCOTT WALKER – 30 CENTURY MAN has been added to the programme. (Attached is brief overview of the film)
Screening information: AUCKLAND - SAT 28 July, 3.45pm, & SUN 29 July, 8.15pm -SKYCITY Cinema 6

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International & New Zealand Guests

International Guests
Please note: All international guests will have a Q&A immediately after the screening of their film.

AMIR BAR-LEV

Director: My Kid Could Paint That
Amir's directorial debut Fighter was named one of the top documentaries of the year by Newsweek, The Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and several other major publications. It won six international awards, and received "Two Thumbs Up" by Ebert and Roeper. After Fighter and before beginning My Kid Could Paint That, Amir served as a creator and Executive Producer on several television pilots, as well as the Weather Channel's series, It Could Happen Tomorrow. The pilot episode focused on the hurricane danger facing New Orleans and was shot only a few months before Katrina.
Amir Bar Lev In Auckland
Wednesday 25 July – Sunday 29 July

In Wellington
Sunday 29 July – Thursday 2 August

MY KID COULD PAINT THAT
Adorable four-year-old Marla Olmstead lives in Binghamton, New York. She has a cute little brother, two doting parents and a prodigious amount of talent in the painting department… or does she? In the first half of this effortlessly entertaining documentary, we’re given no reason to doubt that little Marla is a true pre-school genius whose first exhibition was featured in the New York Times. But in the second half of the documentary, after the media dubs Marla a “pint-sized Pollock” and her painting prices go through the roof, the wheels start to fall off. Is Marla the actual artist, or is she receiving all sorts of “coaching” from her devoted father? Director Amir Bar-Lev gets drawn into his own film as he struggles to believe the parents – clearly he wants to – but his natural scepticism gets in the way. This enthralling documentary, which raises insightful questions regarding the legitimacy of the modern art world, doles out both sides of a very fishy story and then forces you to decide for yourself where the truth actually lies.
My Kid Could Paint That screens:

Auckland
SKYCITY Theatre Thursday 26 July at 6.15 pm & Saturday 28 July at 2.45 pm

FORUM: Panel discussion Keeping It Real American director Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That) joins NZ documentary makers to talk about the delicate relationship between documentary makers and their subject, and the challenge of telling someone else’s story.
Festival Lounge, Wintergarden, The Civic Saturday 28 July at 1.00 pm.

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GARY HUSTWIT

Director: Helvetica
Gary has produced five feature documentaries, including I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, an award-winning film about the band Wilco; Moog, a documentary about electronic music pioneer Robert Moog; and Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, a tour film about the band Death Cab for Cutie. Helvetica is Gary's directorial debut.

Gary Hustwit in Auckland
Friday 13 July - Tuesday 17 July

HELVETICA
Why make a film about a typeface, let alone a feature documentary film about Helvetica? Because it's all around us. You've probably already seen Helvetica several times today. It might have told you which train platform you needed, or tried to sell you investment services or holiday getaways in the ads in your morning paper. Maybe it gave you the latest headlines on television, or let you know whether to 'push' or 'pull' to open your office door.
It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Is the ubiquitous Helvetica typeface a modernist masterpiece or the monolithic McDonald’s of graphic design? This sleek and efficient documentary finds plenty of designers willing to argue either way, and their flights of rhetoric supply the film’s colourful punctuation. Helvetica treats its typeface like any other documentary subject: we visit its birthplace, look at its baby photos, discover how it came to acquire that elegant stage name (the font’s birth name was the unprepossessing “Die Neue Haas Grotesk”), and talk to the folk who have worked with it for years. They offer glowing tributes and back-stabbing gossip: designers either love Helvetica or hate it. Some use it with dripping irony; some with deadly seriousness. Some would never use it in a million years. The contrasting views add up to a picture of the philosophy, politics and recent history of design. And as controversy swirls around it, Helvetica continues its march towards world domination – impassive, impeccable, implacable. www.helveticafilm.com

Helvetica screens Auckland:
SKYCITY Theatre Saturday 14 July at 2.30 pm & Monday 16 July at 6.15 pm

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TONY AYRES

Director / Screenwriter: The Home Song Stories
The Home Song Stories director and screenwriter Tony Ayres was recently awarded the Screenplay Prize at the NSW 2007 Premier's Literary Awards held May 29. Tony previously directed Walking On Water, which won the Teddy Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, five Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards, and two Australian Film Critics Circle Awards. He also wrote and directed the multi-award-winning documentary Sadness (1999) and China Dolls (1998). He has also written extensively for television.

Tony Ayres In Auckland
Monday 16 July – Thursday 19 July

In Wellington
Thursday 19 July – Sunday 22 July

THE HOME SONG STORIES
Glamorous Hong Kong nightclub singer Rose immigrates to Melbourne in 1964 with her two young children in tow. Told through the eyes of her 10-year-old son Tom, we first meet Rose on stage, hotting up the libido of Bill, a Navy man who marries Rose and whisks her off to Melbourne to live with his mother. Rose, it transpires, is the kind of fiery, manipulative diva who can’t last five minutes without a man and when Bill goes off to sea, she takes up with Joe, a dishy chef at the local Chinese restaurant. Joe does his best to provide for the family, but he’s far too young to be a step dad – least of all to Tom’s blossoming teenage sister May. Sumptuous design and photography evoke a wonderful sense of Chinese exoticism adrift in 1970s Melbourne. “Joan Chen [does] her best work in years as the needy, unstable mother who wants the best for her family but looks in all the wrong places, unaware that she holds the key to its emotional balance.” — Matt Riviera, Last Night With Riviera

The Home Song Stories screens:
Auckland - The Civic Tuesday 17 July at 8.30 pm & Thursday 19 July at 10.30 am

FORUM
SPADA presents In Conversation with Tony Ayres
Tony Ayres talks with NZ filmmaker Annie Goldson about the filmmaking process and the journey from script to screen. Festival Lounge, Wintergarden, The Civic, Wednesday 18 July at 6.00 pm

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NICK BONNER

Producer: Crossing the Line
Crossing the Line is the third film about North Korea from UK-based VeryMuchSo productions, after The Game of Their Lives and A State of Mind (World Cinema Showcase 2006). We take great pleasure in welcoming producer and North Korean specialist Nick Bonner to our Festival. As well as a producer at VeryMuchSo, Nick, who now lives in China, is Director of Koryo Tours and organises travel, cultural and educational exchanges in North Korea. He has visited there more than any other Westerner.
Nick Bonner In Auckland
Friday 20 July – Monday 23 July

In Wellington
Monday 23 July – Thursday 26 July

CROSSING THE LINE
In 1962, Private James Dresnok, a 19-year-old American border guard in the notorious Korean demilitarized zone, deserted the US army and crossed over into communist North Korea. One of only four American soldiers to defect there during the height of the Cold War, Dresnok was initially arrested as a spy, before the North Korean government found they could use his unusual circumstances in their propaganda campaign against the United States. Dresnok became a film star, playing the evil American again and again. He also got married, had three children and lives in North Korea to this day. Director Daniel Gordon (making his third film about North Korea with producer – and Festival guest – Nicholas Bonner) skilfully counterpoints Dresnok’s own testimony against fascinating interviews with former friends and colleagues from his American life, as well as stark archival footage of the People’s Republic and interviews with the Korean soldiers who initially arrested him. Branded ‘Comrade Joe’ by Stateside media of the time, Dresnok tells his story here for the first time. www.crossingthelinefilm.com

Crossing the Line screens:

Auckland
SkyCity Theatre Sunday 22 July at 5.45 pm & Monday 23 July at 10.45 am

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CHARLES BURNETT

Director / Screenplay / Photography / Editor: Killer of Sheep
Renowned US film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has called Charles Burnett "the most gifted and important black filmmaker this country (USA) has ever had", and we are overjoyed that Charles is attending our Festival with his revered Killer of Sheep (1977). After graduating from UCLA film school in the early 70s, Charles set out to tell stories about African American life that rejected the clichés of the commercial cinema - both Blaxploitation-style sensationalism and simplistic ‘positive images'. Killer of Sheep does just that, finding unexpected beauty and humour in the everyday struggles through offbeat but right-on observations about black family life. Charles was awarded a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius' grant in 1988 and Killer of Sheep is included in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry's 100 essential films. We are honoured to provide New Zealand audiences the chance to see the beautifully restored print of this masterpiece, and the opportunity to hear from one of cinema's powerful voices.
Charles Burnett In Auckland
Sunday 22 July – Thursday 26 July

In Wellington
Thursday 26 July – Monday 30 July

KILLER OF SHEEP
“For three long decades, Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, a fictional portrait of a working-class black family living in a broken-down home in a bombed-out stretch of Los Angeles, has been largely hidden from view. Shot in Watts in the early 70s… the film was Mr Burnett’s MFA thesis project and never meant for a commercial release. He operated the16‑millimeter camera himself, edited the black-and-white images into a visual poem and added the ballads, the jazz and the moody blues that seep into your head like smoke. The result is an American masterpiece, independent to the bone… At once plot-free and carefully shaped, the film unfolds as a series of interludes involving the family’s children, the mother and father and the friends and strangers who pass through their lives… Killer of Sheep has often been compared to the classics of Italian neo-realism, a comparison born out in the documentary-like authenticity of its milieu, Mr Burnett’s use of nonprofessional actors and commitment to the representation of unadorned life.” — Manohla Dargis, NY Times. www.killerofsheep.com

Killer of Sheep screens:
Auckland - SkyCity Theatre Tuesday 24 July at 6.15 pm & Wednesday 25 July at 1.45 pm

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CHRIS SIVERTSON

Director: The Lost
The Lost is Chris Sivertson's solo directorial debut. Since graduating from the School of Cinema-Television at he University of Southern California, Chris has worked extensively in the independent film world. He joined forces with co-writer/co-director, Lucky McKee, for the 1999 horror feature All Cheerleaders Die, a bloody revenge tale about a squad of zombie cheerleaders. Sivertson has written screenplays for legendary independent producer Roger Corman and edited a variety of feature films, including the 2002 Sundance hit, MAY. Chris is currently in post-production on a comedy he wrote and directed with Eddie Steeples called The Best of Robbers and is also prepping his next film, Hippy. Based on a script he wrote with McKee, Hippy is a psychedelic horror extravaganza.
Chris Sivertson In Auckland
Wednesday 18 July – Friday 20 July

In Wellington
Friday 20 July – Tuesday 24 July

THE LOST
This brutal and lurid melodrama marks the debut of Chris Sivertson, a director with a vision to bring the ‘hurt’ back into the stagnant thriller genre. His film, based on a novel by Jack Ketchum, features a more compelling and complex sociopath than any seen since Martin Sheen strutted his stuff in Badlands. Ray Pye is a charismatic small town psycho who works at his mom’s Bates-like motel. He’s the Pied Piper of Loserville, with naïve friends like Tim and Jen, who live in fear and awe of him, especially after he senselessly kills two young women, and easily intimidates them into helping him cover up the killings. Four years later Ray’s lifestyle is unbalanced by the appearance of high-class beauty Katherine. Suddenly the dominator becomes surprisingly submissive and the film switches gears into a macabre romantic tragedy. Warning: the unrelenting no-holds-barred finale shows complete disrespect for genre conventions and is devastatingly effective in the way it puts the sting back into the horror of on-screen death, without a wink of irony. www.thelostmovie.net

The Lost screens:
Auckland – SkyCity Theatre Wednesday 18 July at 8.15 pm & Thursday 19 July at 11.00 am

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RICHARD GLATZER AND WASH WESTMORELAND

Both directors and writers of Quinceañera, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, will be here to present their second film together.

Richard has managed to establish himself as an indie filmmaker while simultaneously producing some of American television’s top reality hits. Richard’s first feature film Grief (1994) broke new ground by treating the AIDS crisis with depth and unexpected humour. The film played in competition at Sundance, and in other major film festivals including our own. It went on to win top prizes at the San Francisco Frameline Festival and Torino Film Festival. Originally intending to become an academic, Richard got his Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Virginia and edited an acclaimed book of essays about Frank Capra. His television career includes MTV’s Osbournes, Road Rules and Tough Enough. Along with Tyra Banks and Ken Mok, he created the reality sensation, America’s Next Top Model, currently in its sixth season. He is a Life Master tournament bridge player.

Wash has made several acclaimed documentaries, features and television shows. In 2004, he went undercover, leaving his political affiliations at the door, to write and direct a film about the tormented Gay Republicans that won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the American Film Institute Festival. Hailing from Leeds, England, Westmoreland earned his college degree in Politics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and moved to America soon after. He caught the film bug when he was living in New Orleans in 1994 and made a short Squishy Does Porno! that instantly gained cult status. Shortly afterwards he moved to LA and landed a job in the adult industry. In 2000 he made his debut feature based on his observations of that industry, The Fluffer, co-directed with Richard. The film was selected by the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals and has entered cult status.

Richard & Wash In Auckland
Monday 23 July - Friday 27 July

In Wellington
Saturday 28 July - Thursday 2 August

QUINCEAÑERA - Audience Award, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2006
As virginal Magdalena approaches her 15th birthday – celebrated in her Echo Park, Los Angeles hood with a quinceañera, a bash every bit as elaborate as a wedding – her life is consumed by thoughts of her boyfriend and the Hummer limo she hopes to hire for the big day. Discovering she is pregnant comes as much of a shock to her as it does to her devoutly Catholic father, who immediately expels her from home. Magdalena moves in with her Uncle Tomas and the other black sheep of the family, her macho cousin Carlos, who has been rejected by his own father. When Carlos takes a shine to the new neighbours, a well-heeled white gay couple who can’t wait to get their hands on his firm young Latino flesh, his amorous adventures bring unwelcome consequences for them all. Written and directed with obvious love by filmmakers Glatzer and Westmoreland – two white boys who have also made their home in the predominantly Latino suburb of Echo Park – this is a saucy, heartfelt insiders’ portrait of a vibrant neighbourhood assailed by rapid gentrification.

Quinceañera screens:
Auckland - The Civic Tuesday 24 July at 11.00am & Thursday 26 July at 6.15pm

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NEW ZEALAND FILM MAKERS

Please note: All New Zealand guests film makers will be in Auckland for their film screening and have a Q&A session immediately after the film.

HELEN SMYTH

Director/Producer ¿La Verdad? (The Truth)
Helen Smyth has worked in journalism for over 20 years. After stints as a reporter, a parliamentary journalist and on the subeditors’ desk in Wellington, she contributed freelance stories while travelling in India and Europe. Since her first child was born in 1989 (she now has four children) Helen has written a book, Rocking the Cradle – Contraception, Sex and Politics in New Zealand, and worked in a freelance capacity and in public relations. In recent years she has worked as step-in producer for Nine to Noon, Radio New Zealand’s flagship three-hour weekday news and feature programme. Helen is the interviewer in The Kaipara Affair, Barry Barclay’s most recent documentary.

¿La Verdad? (The Truth)
Which is more treacherous: to betray your government or to lie to your friends, family and colleagues for more than 40 years? In 2000, journalist Helen Smyth travelled to Cuba with her husband Tim Rose, the coffee entrepreneur behind Wellington's Havana Coffee Works. They took their three children, then aged five, nine and 11, who were allowed by the Cuban government to attend school. On a bus one evening, Smyth befriended 80-year-old Nestor Baguer, a charismatic Cuban and leader in the dissident journalism movement. Baguer wanted to write his memoirs; Smyth decided to help him. Rose filmed their encounters as the old man told his life story, including his imprisonment for dissent. Baguer is funny, a little cranky and politically incorrect by Western standards, but a compelling and warm human being with an extraordinary tale to tell. After returning to New Zealand, Smyth and Rose kept in touch with their friend, but reading a story in The Guardian one day, were shocked to discover that there was a dark side to the "Cuban grandfather" they thought they knew so well.

La Verdad Screens:

Auckland - Academy Cinema, Thursday 26 July, 6.15pm & Friday 27 July, 11.00am,

IN Auckland Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 July

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ALISTER BARRY

Director: A Civilised Society
Alister Barry is no stranger to the New Zealand Film Festivals, and we are proud to be screening his latest film, A Civilised Society, about the battles over public education in the 1980s and 90s. Alister's film career started in 1973 when he filmed the voyage of a protest boat to Morurua where the French were testing nuclear weapons. Edited in his bedroom, it resulted in Mururoa 1973, which screened on TVNZ. Encouraged by this success, Alister has continued to make independent documentaries about power and democracy in New Zealand. Someone Else's Country (1996) told the story of the New Right revolution, and In a Land of Plenty (2002) argued that the mass employment of the 1980s was no accident, but a strategy of market reforms.

A Civilised Society
"Alister Barry's self-imposed mission to catalogue and record the numerous injustices and madnesses that our great and good's flirtation with new-right economic theory gave rise to is well advanced with the release of A Civilised Society; a film which could be seen as forming a loose trilogy with his earlier In a Land of Plenty and Someone Else's Country. Starting with a brief recap of the virtual revolution that overturned NZ society in the early 1980s, this film focuses on the specifics of one of its more active fronts; education, and specifically the numerous Government attempts to coerce schools into accepting 'bulk funding' and individual employment contracts. This is a dignified, informative and honourable piece of work, a gentlemanly, but still incandescently angry portrait of what a theory-driven spasm of economic meddling did to one of the world's exemplary education systems. Barry never fails to remind us that sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, this generation is living through some turbulent times." — Graeme Tuckett

A Civilised Society Screens:

Auckland – SKYCITY Theatre – Friday 27 July, 1.00pm & Saturday 28 July, 12.15pm

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ALEX GREENHOUGH & ELRIC KANE

Co Directors/Producers/Writers : Kissy Kissy

Alex Greenhough directed, co-wrote, and co-produced I Think I'm Going (2003), and, with Elric Kane, co-directed, co-wrote, and co-produced Murmurs (2004); both films premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Wellington. Kissy Kissy is his third film in collaboration with Elric.

In addition to his practice as a filmmaker, Alex has tutored in both Media Studies and Film at Victoria University of Wellington and has delivered lectures on semiotics and film theory at Emory University, where he earned his master's degree in film studies in 2005. He will begin further graduate study in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University later this year.
For more information on Kissy Kissy Click Here

Elric Kane is a Wellington based filmmaker who until recently has been studying towards an MFA in film production from the Savannah College of Art and Design in the United States. He was co-producer, cinematographer and editor on I Think I'm Going, which premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2003. This was closely followed by Murmurs in 2004, his second digital feature co-directed with Alexander Greenhough, which also premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Wellington. Kissy Kissy is his third film in collaboration with Alex.

In addition to the digital features, he has screened various experimental short films and videos at festivals, including Glass Traps at the 2006 Boston Underground Film Festival and Girl Yawning at the 2005 PXL Film Festival in Los Angeles. He has also shot digital short films for various directors, including The City By Her, in Istanbul, Turkey in August 2005 and Ever Amado which is premiering at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. While making Kissy Kissy, Elric has been a tutor in Film at Victoria University of Wellington and plans to travel to Chicago after the festival to complete his MFA thesis.

Kissy Kissy
Audiences will have no trouble relating to the strained relationships and sincere, unrequited longing at the heart of this engaging new feature from talented local filmmaking duo Elric Kane and Alexander Greenhough. Twenty-something Geoff is trying to make a film, but mostly he mooches in a video store and tries to rebuff the affections of his devoted co-worker Sally. He’d much rather hook up with his cinematographer Jackie, who has more than enough angst to contend with in bratty teenage sister Erin. Then there is Geoff’s lead actress, Alison – whose manipulative boyfriend Mark is a right royal pain in the ass – and lead actor, Dave, who scuppers the film project when he skips town to hang out with his old mate Lee in the Marlborough Sounds – a tense reunion if ever there was one. All eight are locked in an agonising merry-go-round of unexpressed lust and emotional turmoil that can only end in tears. What elevates Kissy above the usual exploration of 20-something angst is its insistence on telling the uncomfortable truth in a winning vérité style.

Kissy Kissy Screens:

Auckland SKYCITY Queen Street, Cinema 6 - Friday 27 July, 2.45pm & 6pm,

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MICHAEL HEATH

Director/Screenplay: Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows

Michael Heath was born in Wyndham, Southland, and worked as a journalist in his early years. He joined Pacific Films, and wrote and starred in a series of award-winning documentaries for television, including Lost In the Garden of the World, about the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.
In the 70s Michael lived in London and began writing stage plays, which have been performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. In the 80s he returned to New Zealand and wrote the screenplays for The Scarecrow (Director's Fortnight, Cannes) and two horror fantasy films, Death Warmed Up and Next of Kin (both Grand Prix winners at Sitges and Paris Fantastique Festivals.)

In 2000 he directed his first digital experimental drama A Small Life, which won 8 awards at the Kara Film Festival in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002, as well as the Grand Prix at Seoul Net, in South Korea and at Avanca Digital Festival in Portugal. In 2004 Heath was invited to attend the world premiere in Los Angeles of "All Good Soldiers in the West Wind", a stage play he wrote 28 years ago. Michael's Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows is his second film with producer Bhim Singh Chouhan.

Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows
One of New Zealand’s most talented yet underrated artists, Edith Collier (1885-1964) was, sadly, a victim of her times. Born in Wanganui at a time when the town was still in the grip of profound and stultifying Victorianism, she suddenly found herself in an exciting milieu of new ideas and experimentation when she escaped to study in England. In this fertile environment she created many exquisite paintings in the new Modernist style (Frances Hodgkins was one of her admirers), but when her father, who felt she was wasting her time and costing too much to support, summoned her home, she had no option but to return. Being back in her home environment was crushing for her, as people had no understanding of her work, and tragically, Collier chose to give up painting as a result. Michael Heath’s film tells Collier’s story with sensitivity and respect, and includes much of her extraordinarily beautiful work. It is not only a fitting eulogy to a remarkable artist, but an affecting tale of cultural identity and rejection.

Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows Screens:

Auckland – Academy Cinema, Saturday 28 July, 1pm & Sunday 29 July, 11am

In Auckland Saturday 28 July to Monday 30 July

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TONY HILES

Director: Antonello and the Architect

Tony Hiles made his first film in 1966 (during USA President L.B. Johnson's visit to New Zealand). It was seven minutes long and broadcast on television. Between then and 1969, he worked in and out of television, briefly in advertising, and mostly at the commercial production house of Peach Wemyss with studios in the Vogue cinema that is now the Penthouse in Brooklyn.

He returned to the NZBC in 1970 as a producer/director, worked at Avalon in the TV-One days and left in 1979 when the graffiti suggested the bottom was going to fall out of local television production. In 1980 he and his partner Judith Fyfe set up City Associates, to make, write, publish, create or distribute anything that took their fancy.

Tony then began to focus on social documentaries, making films about the centenary of Martinborough; Michael Smither reclaiming eroded beaches; Peter Vere-Jones beating cancer; Michael Smither attempting human flight; Peter Jackson making his first film; a history of Waiorongomai Station, plus feature film production, experimental interactive digital media, software development, and anything that came his way in the line of film-making. Opportunities continued to arise, including in 2002 meeting up with Bill Toomath again. While juggling that documentary, he was writing a detective novel, which he plans to get back to as soon as Antonello and the Architect is out for the world to see.

Antonello and the Architect
Some years ago, Wellington architect Bill Toomath proposed the idea of constructing a ‘design den’ underneath his Roseneath house. Toomath later revised the plan and it’s finally complete – but instead of being a basement room it’s a completely new structure, built as an elegant addition to the modernist dwelling he designed in the 1960s. Toomath’s concept for this new room was quite revolutionary: “The idea somehow flashed into my mind, but from then immediately seemed inevitable, that the painting by Antonello da Messina of “St Jerome in his Study” simply encapsulated the whole atmosphere of what I hoped to, or what I would like to, have lived amongst.” With his fantasy painting of a man who had lived a thousand years earlier, Antonello explored the fourth dimension of time. So does Bill’s replica – and so does this documentary. Using time-lapse and real-time cameras, Antonello and the Architect records the realisation of Bill’s idea, and provides him with an opportunity to talk about his life, architecture, and influences over a long and remarkable career.

Antonello and the Architect Screens:

Auckland – Academy Cinema, Wednesday 25 July, 6.15pm & Thursday, 26 July 1.15pm

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SHIRLEY HORROCKS

Director The Comics Show and Questions for Mr Reynolds
Shirley Horrocks, is one of New Zealand's leading directors and producers of documentaries. Shirley has been a frequent guest of our Festival.

She has specialised in making documentaries about the arts (the work and career of leading painters, photographers and writers) and about New Zealand society and culture, among them The New Oceania (2005), about Pacific novelist Albert Wendt and Marti (2004), about photographer Marti Friedlander. Her work has won a number of awards. She was born in Auckland, New Zealand. She has run her own production company, Point of View Productions, for 23 years.

The Comics Show and Questions for Mr Reynolds
The writing and drawing of comic books has remained a little-known and under-rated area of New Zealand culture. The Comics Show director Shirley Horrocks reveals to us that it is a highly creative subculture with a rich local history. This entertaining and visually inventive film takes us from Auckland street culture to Wellington’s ‘Eric Awards’ and on to the comic shops of Paris, where New Zealand work is well-known and highly sought after. Questions for Mr Reynolds presents a profile of one of the most important New Zealanders in the arts today – John Reynolds, the painter, photographer and landscape artist who represented our country at the last Sydney Biennale and was recently made a Laureate by the Arts Foundation. John has a likeable, articulate, exuberant personality, a strong sense of humour, and an original approach to the many areas of the arts that he’s tackled. With total access behind the scenes, this documentary shows us how John conceives and develops his adventurous projects, and how he manages to combine all this with a busy family life.

The Comics Show and Questions for Mr Reynolds Screens

Auckland – Academy Cinema - Saturday 14 July, 1.00pm & Monday 16 July 1.00pm

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TAIKA WAITITI

(Availability of Taika Waititi for media interviews is limited and to be confirmed)
Director/Screenplay: Eagle vs Shark
Taika is of Te-Whanau-a-Apanui descent and hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast, New Zealand. He has been involved in the film industry for several years, initially as an actor, and now focusing on writing and directing. As a performer and comedian, Taika has been involved in some of the most innovative and successful productions seen in New Zealand. He regularly does standup gigs around the county and in 2004 launched his solo production, “Taika’s Incredible Show.”

He is the director of the acclaimed short films “Two Cars, One Night,” which garnered an Academy Award® nomination and “Tama Tu.” He currently has two more feature films in development.

Eagle vs Shark
Infamous for feigning sleep when his Oscar nomination for Two Cars, One Night was announced, local filmmaker Taika Waititi continues his singular, subversive and glittering career with this deadpan feature debut. Co-written with actor Loren Horsley, who also stars, Eagle has been described as a romantic version of cult comedy Napoleon Dynamite – only funnier and way more surreal. Lily (Horsley) is an awkward, sweet-natured girl with stringy hair who cashiers in a fast-food joint called Meaty Boy. She sets her sights on Jarrod (Clement), the self-aggrandising geek from the computer store across the way, and wins his heart – sort of – after impressing him at a fancy dress party with her shark costume and gaming prowess. Charming music from The Phoenix Foundation underscores every step of their turbulent romance. Filmed on locations around Wellington and Titahi Bay, with art direction that implies it might still be the 1980s, at least in Lily’s imagination, Eagle is a hilarious, endearing look at life on the geek side.
www.eaglevsshark.net

Eagle vs Shark Screens

Auckland - The Civic - Wednesday 25 July, 8.30pm & Thursday 26 July, 11.00am,

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Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man is a 2006 documentary film about Scott Walker. The film gets its title from the Scott 3 song "30 Century Man". It is directed and co-produced by Stephen Kijak,with Grant Gee serving as director of photographer. It charts Walker's career in music, with a focus on his songwriting, and features exclusive footage of recording sessions for his most recent album, The Drift including the percussive punching of a joint of pork. Rock legend David Bowie, who often professes to have been inspired by Walker, acted as executive producer of the film. Actor Gale Harold is one of the associate producers.

The film received its world premiere at the London Film Festival on 31st October 2006 and will be on general distribution in early 2007.

In addition to Walker himself, interviewees in the film include David Bowie, Radiohead, Jarvis Cocker, Brian Eno, Damon Albarn, Marc Almond, Alison Goldfrapp, Sting, Dot Allison, Simon Raymonde, Richard Hawley, Rob Ellis, Johnny Marr, Gavin Friday, Lulu, Peter Olliff, Angela Morley (arranger of Walker's sixties' recordings as Wally Stott), Ute Lemper, Ed Bicknell, Evan Parker, Benjamin Biolay, Hector Zazou, Mo Foster, Phil Sheppard, and Peter Walsh.

The film is produced by Oscar-winning producer Mia Bays, marking her debut in documentary and feature film production

ENDS

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