Film Archive’s popular Talk/Show back in May

April 26, 2011
Film Archive’s popular Talk/Show back in May

Here’s an idea: grab some learned and interesting speakers, give them a topic, splice their presentations with archival footage from the New Zealand Film Archive, provide a comfortable theatre, and call it a Talk/Show. Sound like a plan?

Well here’s the secret: it’s already happened. In fact, last year’s Talk/Show at the Film Archive was so popular, they’ve decided to do it again.

For three Wednesdays in May (4, 11 and 25), the Film Archive hosts educationalists and visiting speakers to talk on a range of topics, combined with excerpts and clips from the Archive’s collection of historical and contemporary television.

Talk/Show provides an opportunity for speakers to add moving images to their expertise, and for the audience to add their own thoughts to the interactive evenings, which begin 7pm Wednesdays May 4, 11 and 25 at the Film Archive.

This year’s programme explores issues of ‘untrustworthy’ New Zealand architecture in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, our relations with some of our smallest yet most important Pacific neighbours, and a reprise of last year’s popular evening about Wellington City and its precarious geography - after all, is it not an unusual place to put a city?

Wednesday 4 May, 7pmTalk/Show - Wellington on Film: An Historical Geography of a Unique Settlement.
Alex Burton: Manager Production, New Zealand Film Archive

There’s little doubt that the positioning of Wellington City was an unusual site for a capital city and for any notion that an expanding population could be easily catered for. The short history of the city shows how quickly things can change, and it’s a great story.

Using documentary extracts, early silent footage, government and unofficial sources, amateur footage, stills, TV advertising and online resources, this Talk/Show tracks the development, unique settlement patterns, elements of social history, and transformation periods that have created Wellington. (A reprise of last year’s popular event with new material added)

Wednesday 11 May, 7pmTalk/Show - Eye_Land_Eyes: Films from the Pacific
Guest Speaker: Anton Carter, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs

A presentation of short film clips and discussion focusing on Pacific Island nations with direct political links with New Zealand/Aotearoa – i.e. Niue, Tokelau, and Cook Islands. The presentation investigates the two key questions; what are some of the challenges facing the Island nations and what is New Zealand’s on-going responsibility towards these nations?

Presenter Anton Carter (Central Regional Manager, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs) will draw from his own experiences, recent strategic reports by MFAT (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), NZAid (NZ’s foreign Aid agency) and Pacific Peoples Progress Report (Statistics NZ) to make some informative observations.

Wednesday 25 May, 7pm
Talk/Show - NZ TV: Fragility: the Uncomfortable Sides of Architecture
Guest Speaker: Christine McCarthy Victoria University School of Architecture

This selection is a response to the Canterbury and Christchurch earthquakes and the consequent reconceptualisation of architecture as vulnerable.

It explores footage from the New Zealand Film Archive to propose a New Zealand history of architecture as untrustworthy and suspect through this new realisation that architecture is no longer able to be understood as secure, permanent and safe.

Talk/Show
Wednesdays 4, 11 and 25 May
The New Zealand Film Archive
Cnr Taranaki St and Ghuznee St, Wellington
Event line: 04 499 FILM

ends