From Hawke's Bay To Berlin – This Way Of Life

This Way of Life is that rare thing – a truly quintessential Kiwi film. Shot over four years with no budget, the film follows the lives of Peter and Colleen Karena as they raise their six children on the thin edge between freedom and disaster.

The film has been selected to screen in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival, one of the top five festivals in the world.

Follow the filmmakers as they blog their journey from Hawke's Bay to Berlin.

Image: Cloud South Films.

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Part VII: European Film Market

Walking the halls of the European Film Market in Berlin it is obvious we are in an alternate world. I am told there are a thousand films for sale and a thousand scripts being touted. It’s a shark pit in the main selling venue, a constantly circling flock of buyers, alert for even a whiff of seller desperation. The business is fast and furious. Meetings come and go in ten-minute slots, just enough time for a peck on each cheek, a speed pitch and a low-ball offer.

As self-funded documentary makers with no more than a stack of postcards to promote our film we wander these halls in amazement at this end of the business. Those of us making our films outside the mainstream should be barred from entering these events.

Instead they should pack us all off to another planet where gloss and hype are banned and inspiration and innovation are the real currency. But first, if I could just get that distributors card I’m sure all will be well.

Part VIII: Pissing Contests

Wellie, the eldest son in this Way of Life was in a pissing contest with his new best friend James, the star of Taika Waititi’s great new film Boy. “I signed the most autographs,” says Wellie. “Nah you didn’t,” says James, “it was me”. Both boys laugh and run off together to check out the crowd building out front of the theatre before the next screening of This Way of Life.

For Wellie, Berlin represents a dreamscape so far removed from his normal haunts on the beaches and in the mountains of Hawkes Bay as to constitute a life-changing experience. His mum, Colleen (who is serenely calm in the face of flashing cameras and people clamouring for her attention) assures us that when they get home the whanau will take care of any ego issues Wellie might have developed. I know she’s right, but still there’s a nagging disquiet. For James, it’s a different story, signing autographs is part of his job description. (Although, whether it’s actually good for the personal growth of a 12 year-old is another story).

The slice-of-life documentary makers code calls on us to make no impact. But I guess I’m feeling a bit like a doctor realising how false the ‘first do no harm’ premise is. Of course we’ve changed the Karena’s lives. You can’t put a kid in front of a crowd of hungry autograph seekers in a foreign land and expect his life to remain the same.

Thank god for his whanau and his normal way of life waiting back home. There the pissing contests are really just that.

Part IX: Like a Born-again

As we leave Berlin for the long trek home it occurs to me that we are very difficult to get along with. Like born-agains or new parents we’re so focused on the little bubble of low-budget documentary making and marketing we hardly notice the wider world.

Our kids are used to our obsessions but this one seems to have taken a very strong hold. We eat, sleep, think and poop This Way of Life – which is exciting for us and boring for everyone else. And now we’ll be adding Yolanda’s Last Portrait to our mix.

At the Berlin festival one thing became obvious – we’re a little old to be embarking on what is a new career for us both. Young people should be making low-budget documentaries. Passion and obsession should be the preserve of those with energy to spare. We’re grandparents and we like to sleep, while we really don’t do well in the two-star accommodation kindly provided by the festival.

And yet we found ourselves repeatedly in conversations about our increasingly technical world - which is clearly the preserve of the young – and the loss of storytelling. At dinner one producer wondered if in fact we were in the grip of a cultural autism. As she saw it, the more technology (and thus budget) a film requires the more it appeals to and tunes the left-brain. And that’s perhaps what I hated most about Avatar – all that film wizardry in service of itself, instead of story.

The trick of course is to harness the fantastic benefits of the digital world to the needs of the heart to make intense, emotionally connected films. That’s certainly our goal. And one of the benefits of going to Berlin with This Way of Life was the solidifying of that purpose. Vive l’obsession!

For more, See:
The Blog: This Way Of Life Goes To Berlin
The Trailer: This Way Of Life (official site)
Filmmaker's Site: Cloud South Films

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