Archive for the ‘Your stories’ Category

NZ On Screen has launched a significant selection of classic NZ short films.

The first in a series – in partnership with the NZ Film Commission – it showcases award-winning examples of Kiwi short filmmaking. From the seminal Kitchen Sink to the sleazy charms of The Lounge Bar, from Cannes to Ngawi; this collection makes many films available online for the first time since they won festival acclaim and audiences.

A background piece by Barney McDonald (Sunday Star Times film reviewer and Pavement magazine founder) surveys the short filmscape: “a beautiful medium for nailing an idea to the fence post with a piece of No.8 wire.”

Curator and NZ Film Commission Short Film Manager Juliette Veber reflects on the legacy — career spawning and works of art in their own right — of NZ short films. If you scroll the credits of The Lounge Bar (1989) you’ll see that special effects were handled by one ‘Peter Jackson’.

The collection is the ideal primer for watching the emerging ranks of Kiwi filmmakers — in the ‘Homegrown’ sections of the 2010 NZ International Film Festival. Watch the trailer, then get along and support the next generation!

The best of 2010’s shorts — ‘Homegrown works on film’ — premiere in Wellington on Fri 16 July, 6pm at the Paramount.

For screening times elsewhere, and the rest of the MIC Toi Rerehiko Homegrown programme (digital and animated shorts), visit the festival website.

When you’re back from the movies, check into NZ On Screen’s collection. Other iconic Kiwi shorts onsite include: Jane Campion’s Peel; Grant Lahood’s Singing Trophy; Taika Waititi’s Tama Tū; and Rob Sarkies’ Signing Off.

This post was originally published on NZ On Screen.

The late Merata Mita was a key figure in the story of Māori filmmaking. Through documentaries, interviews, public speaking and her 1987 dramatic feature Mauri, she was a passionate voice for Māori and an advocate for social change.

Swimming against the tide becomes an exhilarating experience. It makes you strong. I am completely without fear now. Merata Mita

Merata Mita grew up in the Bay of Plenty town of Maketu, the third eldest of nine children. She had a traditional rural Māori upbringing, and recalls watching newsreels when films were projected onto the walls of the local wharenui.

Later, during eight years teaching at Kawerau College, Mita began using film and video to reach supposedly unteachable high school students, many of them Māori. “What they were all good at was expressing themselves through art, image, drawing.” The experience taught Mita “how powerful image was in reaching people who don’t have other communication skills”.

Mita worked on her first documentary in 1977, helping a Pākehā filmmaker organise interviews with Māori people. But she soon began to grow disenchanted at Māori misrepresentation on film, and at how Māori seemed to be employed only to liase with Māori communities for Pākehā filmmakers.

In May 1978 Mita got a telephone call telling her “to get a film crew up to Bastion Point”. Mita arrived just in time to film police removing Ngāti Whatua protestors from the site. Lack of funds meant that Bastion Point: Day 507 (co-directed with Gerd Pohlmann and Leon Narbey) would take another two years to complete.

Mita went on to direct and co-direct films about the trade union movement and the Hokianga Catholic Māori community. The Bridge (1982) co-directed with Pohlmann, chronicles the longrunning Mangere Bridge industrial dispute. She also worked as a reporter and presenter for Māori TV news show Koha, and collaborated with Martyn Sanderson on cross-cultural documentary Keskidee Aroha.

Patu! was Merata Mita’s passionate record of clashes between protestors and police during the 1981 Springbok tour. The subject of intense media coverage, Patu! was described by filmmaker/ Listener reviewer Peter Wells as “the hottest documentary ever made in New Zealand”. It was also the first feature-length documentary in New Zealand directed by a woman. Local cinema chains refused to screen it. Patu! went on to screen at film festivals around the world. 

Mita followed Patu! in 1988 with Mauri, only the second feature film drama to have a Māori woman director (1972’s To Love a Māori was co-directed by Ramai Hayward and husband Rudall). Mauri’s plotline centres around issues of birthright and racism in an isolated rural community, with land rights activist Eva Rickard playing the central role of the grandmother. 

The film was a training ground for many young Māori crew members; Mita argued that “what you gain from Māori people is an incredible intensity and passion about the work being done”.

Mauri won a best prize at Italy’s Rimini Film Festival. After some negative reviews of the film at festival screenings back home, Mita argued against Pākehā reviewers who were “not qualified to assess it”. She asked not that people liked the film, but that they view it with an open mind.

In making Mauri, Mita consciously rejected Pākehā traditions of storytelling. Instead she embraced a layered approach, in keeping with the strongly oral tradition of Māori people. “These are differences that Pākehā critics don’t even take into account when they’re analysing the film.”*

1989 saw Mita and longtime editor Annie Collins at a Steenbeck editing bench on Turangawaewae Marae. Mita had accepted the challenge of making Mana Waka (1990), a documentary which used abandoned footage chronicling the creation of four special wakas commissioned by Princess Te Puea, for New Zealand’s 1940 centenary.

Mana Waka met with its own ownership complications: at one point descendants of the original Pākehā cameraman ran off with an early print of the film, despite having already agreed to let Mita direct.

Mita also made documentaries on artist Ralph Hotere (Hotere, 2001), rastafarians in Ruatoria (The Dread) and judicial injustice (The Shooting of Dominick Kaiwhata, 1993). She also directed the video for Che Fu’s Waka, which won the Music Video of the Year Award at the 1999 Hawaii Music Awards. In 1998, Mita was herself the subject of television documentary Rangatira.

Mita spent much of the 90s working in America, alongside then partner, director Geoff Murphy. As an actor, she appeared in Murphy’s Utu and a TV adaptation of Rowley Habib’s The Protesters. She was later on the producing team behind Murphy’s Kiwi-set feature Spooked (2004) and 2010 box office smash Boy, and was executive producer on 2004’s The Land has Eyes, the first feature directed by a native Fijian. 

Mita hosted workshops and spoke on panels about indigenous filmmaking in many countries. She also taught critical studies at the University of Hawai’i.

In 1996 Mita was awarded the Leo Dratfield Lifetime Achievement Award for documentary, by the Robert Flaherty Foundation.

Mita collapsed suddenly outside an Auckland television studio on May 31, 2010. The same year she had received the order of merit in the New Year’s Honours. Her long cherished dream of adapting Patricia Grace novel Cousins into a feature remained unfulfilled. 

Moe mai e te rangatira, moe mai.

* Quotation from Parekowhai, Cushla. “Kōrero Ki Taku Tuakana: Merata Mita and me.” Illusions Issue 9, December 1988.

NZ On Screen celebrates 50 years of television in Aotearoa with some fantastic golden oldies … as well as some recent memorbable moments. Check out Solid Gold Hits from the box.

June 1st 2010 represents half a century of seeing ourselves reflected on the telly. To celebrate, NZ On Screen presents a collection of the gold hits, from The Governor to Gliding On to Gloss, from Country Calendar to Close to Home, from Shortland St to Selwyn Toogood , Billy T and Thingee.

Included in the collection era-defining dramas (Pukemanu, The Governor, Close to Home, Gloss, Shortland Street), cultural cringe-defying comedy (Billy T, A Week of It, Hudson and Halls, Country Calendar’s spoofs and Town and Around’s turkeys in gumboots), iconic newsreaders through the years, current affairs classics (Dennis Conner’s walkout, Post Office strike breakthroughs, Muldoon meltdowns), landmark documentaries (Tangata Whenua, and the Landmarks series itself), national-bonding events (Top Town, Telethon), the shows that generations of Kiwi kids grew up with (After School , Spot On, Under the Mountain, Play School, What Now?, Nice One, Count Homogenized ), magic moments (Thingee’s eye-popping) and much more.

In a background piece, pop culture writer Barney McDonald gets square eyes surveying the best of NZ On Screen. The Sunday Star-Times’ film reviewer and Pavement founder looks at the shows as notches on both a personal and national growth chart.

“… the box was the glue that bound us together as a modest nation, epitomised by televised All Black games, It’s in the Bag and Telethon. Now, perhaps, it’s the Internet, talkback radio and morning TV weather presenters visiting more corners of the country than Selwyn Toogood ever could …”

And screen historian Roger Horrocks provides a history of TV: a précis of the screen-scape from black and white beginnings, and pubic service vs commercial debates, to the challenge of the Internet.

From “you’re not in Guatemala now Dr Ropata” to “Keep Cool ‘til After School”, from “Jeez Wayne” to “Nice one Stu-y!”

Re-live the best of the box … online.

Creative New Zealand has teamed up with The Big Idea for the final smART talk forum –Philanthropy: Getting Enough? – which aims to give arts organisations and practitioners insights into how to raise philanthropic funds. 

From 12 – 30 April 2010, join special guest Margaret Belich in online discussion and debate about  fundraising and philanthropy. Margaret is a respected member of the arts community, a fundraising expert and a member of the new Cultural Philanthropy Taskforce (which was established last year by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Hon Christopher Finlayson to investigate ways to improve levels of philanthropic giving in New Zealand).

Margaret says arts organisations and practitioners are making choices all the time about how to stretch the arts dollar in pursuit of their artistic mission. “I’m hoping that the forum will add to the sector’s knowledge of fundraising and that we get to expand our horizons as to the extraordinary potential of philanthropy.”

Who is it for?
For any of us in the arts and cultural sector who want to learn more about fundraising and philanthropy we can ask questions, get Margaret’s expert advice, debate topical issues and share our stories – of both successes and failures – in the fundraising field. This forum is for you, if you’d like to know more about:

• Why and when should we fundraise?
• How effective fundraising works?
• How do arts and cultural organisations better communicate their value to potential altruists?
• How much do arts organisations know about philanthropy and philanthropists know about the arts?
• What unique value should arts and cultural organisations be communicating to prospective donors?
• Does the answer lie in a relationship building exercise between the donor and recipient?
• How should arts organisations respond to the innovative potential of philanthropy?

It’s a great professional learning opportunity and it’s free to join in the online discussions. You can participate by asking the questions you’ve always wanted to and by joining in the debate. To get the most out of the conversation, I’d really encourage you to share your stories, questions and challenges with other forum participants, as well as with Margaret. The more we hear stories of both success and failure, the better we can understand what works for our community. 

smART talk Forum 03  | Philanthropy: Getting Enough? is the place to find out all you need to know about how to about the ‘art of fundraising’ in New Zealand’s arts and cultural sector.

By David Luoni

Cuba Crisis No.1. Image courtesy of Tauranga Art Gallery, from a private collection.

Gore’s Eastern Southland Gallery is hosting a compelling retrospective of Edward (Ted) Bullmore’s art entitled ‘A Surrealist Odyssey’. Ted Bullmore was a southern lad who grew up on the family’s farm at Balfour but his talent lent itself to acquiring cultural rather than rural capital. Gore has now caught up with Bullmore’s genius and is proudly celebrating it. If only we’d had the foresight to do this 40 years ago when Bullmore needed it, having returned home from a productive nine year stint in Europe only to find himself working in relative obscurity in Rotorua. Sadly, Ted Bullmore died young, aged only 45, after having a heart attack in 1978.

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Vanguard Films have waved the flag for the dispossessed and the underdog, for social and peace activists, for women and working people, teachers and unionists, anyone essentially, not of the ruling class, over the past thirty long years, as well as tackling environmental issues.

Vanguard is a small, socialist collective of Wellington-based filmmakers who’ve remained dedicated and active over the last three decades. To celebrate this 30th anniversary, the Film Archive presents Vanguard Films: 30 years – A better world is possible – two weeks of screenings spanning the collective’s output from 1981 to 2008.

The Film Archive have set us this challenge – “From The Hollow Men, to the Waihopai spy base, if you’re not familiar with these documentaries and you call yourself a New Zealander, you need to get watching”.

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By Marianne Taylor, Executive Director, Arts Access Aotearoa

Many of us take the arts for granted. We go to the theatre or a concert; take painting, dance or creative writing classes; and book our tickets to the New Zealand International Film Festival every year.

But what if you have a disability that makes it difficult for you to participate? After all, an estimated 660,300 people (17% of the population) reported a disability in the 2006 Statistics New Zealand survey. Perhaps you use a wheelchair or are sight-impaired. Maybe your disability is less obvious: you experience epilepsy, asthma or migraines.

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On Monday night Arts Access Aotearoa held their annual Big ‘A’ Awards, celebrating the outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations working to enhance the artistic lives of people who have been marginalised by the mainstream.

The 2009 winners included a talented young writer who has overcome the odds, a mixed-ability dance company, a theatre project inspiring teenagers and the elderly, and a prison arts advocate.

Marianne Taylor, Executive Director of Arts Access Aotearoa, said the Awards pay tribute to the artistic work happening in New Zealand communities. “Everyone has the right to participate in the arts and express themselves creatively,” she said. “These awards are a way of acknowledging the people and organisations that help make this possible.”

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It’s September and it’s New Zealand Book Month!

The aim of NZ Book Month is to support and encourage Kiwi writers to keep creating and to show off their talents to New Zealand readers. The organisers of NZ Book Month say, “Quite simply, the idea is to get more of us reading New Zealand books”.

www.NZHistory.net.nz is celebrating Book Month with ‘30 reasons to love New Zealand books and writing’. The site has a bookcase full of stories and inspiration for each day of the month, from stories of ‘Ponga and Puhihuia’ and ‘Hutu and Kawa’ the Pohutukawa Fairies to a history of The Listener and kids’ favourite Hairy Maclary – all brought to life with great images.

And don’t forget to check out your literary literacy by doing the New Zealand Book Month quiz.

The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing have come and gone, providing us with entertainment, victory, heartbreak, lashings of good old national fervour and some respite from the depths of winter.

Beijing 2008 has been lauded as one of our finest Olympic efforts. The team came home with nine medals – placing us 26th overall. But we ranked 5th in medals table on a per-capita basis. Our congratulations go to those triumphant Kiwis who contributed to the best medal haul of the last two decades. Let’s take a look at just some of the other records that were broken in Beijing:

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