Chronicling New Zealand’s Love Affair With Film

September 1, 2011

Chronicling New Zealand’s Love Affair With Film

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History, edited by Diane Pivac, Frank Stark and Lawrence McDonald and published by Te Papa Press, has been on sale since July 1, and is now supported with an online education resource, developed by Jakki Galloway at the New Zealand Film Archive.

As the principle repository for New Zealand's moving image heritage The Film Archive have a dedicated team of education professionals working to provide young New Zealanders with practical knowledge on where we've come from, who we are and where we may be going.

New Zealand’s love affair with movies and movie making has been brought into sharp focus by New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History, a recent relase which has been gathering favourable reviews the country over.

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History

The book sets a course through New Zealand’s history in film, starting when Professors Hausmann and Gow introduced “Edison's latest marvel, the Kinematograph” as part of a vaudeville programme of short films; through the hokey-pokey era of gritty kiwiana classics like Goodbye Pork Pie and Smash Palace; and into the flash modern era when Wellington has become synonymous with cutting edge digital cinema technology.

Featuring many previously unseen images and unheard anecdotes, New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History chronicles the journey through 11 chapters, featuring 25 essays penned by some of our most respected writers, film makers, industry insiders and fans - including a foreword by one of the biggest fans of New Zealand cinema, Sir Ian McKellen.

It is a comprehensive celebration of more than a century’s worth of local film ranging from the first cinema screenings and magic lantern shows of the 19th century through the determined development of an industry infrastructure and the establishment of the Film Societies and Film Festivals in the mid-20th century, to the many ingenious technical innovations and the post-Jackson effect professionalism of the present day.

With direct connection to the current cirriculum, this resource has been created to support both the book New Zealand Film: An Illustrated Historyand its accompanying DVD; which features some of the most noteworthy films in our history. While the unit has been written primarily for Media Studies students it can also support topics in both English and History. As a valuable resource, both in and out of the classroom, online access to this material will allow a wide range of students to better understand the themes and stories shared within New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History pages.

http://www.filmarchive.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=99999999

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