Records Broken at Film Festival

3 August 2004

Records Broken at Telecom 33rd Wellington Film Festival

Admissions at this year’s Wellington Film Festival totalled 73,500, organisers announced today. The previous record attendance, set in 2000, was 67,000. Last week Festival organisers announced a similar increase in attendance at the Auckland Film Festival.

“Audiences have responded as never before to this year’s programme”, said Festival director Bill Gosden. “I had always doubted our ability to exceed the previous record in Wellington, so this is an extremely welcome surprise.”

He attributed the success of the programme to an unprecedented range of endorsement and media interest, generated by Telecom’s naming-rights sponsorship; the early securing of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 immediately after its success at Cannes; and the new relationship with ‘Incredible Film Festival’ programmer, Ant Timpson. Increased attendance at week-day, daytime sessions at the Embassy had offset the effect of the refurbished theatre’s reduced capacity.

The most heavily attended films on the programme had included the opening night film, The Motorcycle Dairies, documentaries Fahrenheit 9/11, Touching the Void and The Corporation and the New Zealand feature In My Father’s Den.

ENDS

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