MEDIA RELEASE
DATE 5 December 2007 RELEASE DATE 5 December 2007

This is New Zealand Returns Home

After a successful tour of New Zealand in the Telecom International Film Festivals the iconic film This is New Zealand returns home to the Embassy Theatre Wellington for a pre-Christmas season from tomorrow.

“The Embassy Theatre Wellington is where the film screened after its sojourn at
Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, so it’s fitting to see it back there again on the large screen,” Dianne Macaskill, Chief Executive Archives New Zealand said.

“The film was seen by 2 million people during its time at the Osaka Expo’70 and on its return here it was seen by nearly 25 percent of adult New Zealanders,” she said.

“Many more people took the recent opportunity to see the film when it toured 14 centres in the film festival. Now Wellingtonians will be able to see it again along with two other films made at the same time, This is Expo and C’mon to New Zealand.”

Dianne Macaskill said This is New Zealand was made by the National Film Unit for the New Zealand Commission promotion at Expo ’70 in Osaka. The original film has not been available for public viewing for over 30 years because three projectors were required to screen it.

Archives New Zealand has restored and remastered the film at Wellington's Park Road Post Production facility so the three images can now be screened using one projector. The process used was digital intermediate where the original film is scanned, digitally manipulated and then put back on to film.

“Previous attempts to create a combined film image using traditional optical methods suffered a severe drop in quality when combining three images into one.

“We brought back the original director, Hugh Macdonald, who helped oversee the digital intermediate process. Kit Rollings, the original sound mixer, also worked on the new sound track.

“Having the film re-mastered is a great preservation success and as a result many more New Zealanders can now see the film.”

The season for This is New Zealand which captures New Zealanders at work and play in the late 1960s and early 1970s opens tomorrow. For more information check the Embassy site at: http://www.deluxe.co.nz/index.asp

ENDS

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