New Zealand Unbound

At one stage last year there were five features in production all over New Zealand. Not bad for a little country with a total population barely exceeding that of some of Australia's major cities. Admittedly at least two of the films (Lord of the Rings and The Shearer's Breakfast) were fully funded international productions, but all of them required what several New Zealand filmmakers have variously described as, "the ability to work with spit and fencing wire".

If you can believe Forgotten Silver, the New Zealand bare bones approach to filmmaking has existed since the invention of film technology. Despite Jack Be Nimble actually illustrating the situation (a character is disciplined with fencing wire before being crucified on a fence) the entry point for the MUFF 2001 presentation of New Zealand Unbound is 1978.

Angel Mine by then first time feature maker David Blyth, is an urban fantasy film that aggressively embodies the DIY ethic. Angel Mine was also supported by the New Zealand Film Commission a government agency that unlike its Australian equivalents, has actively favoured some of the weirdest and wildest ideas ever to involve a film camera. In another departure from the official position of Australian government film funding bodies, the NZFC has also consistently encouraged the dominant mode of its country's cinematic address to be firmly rooted in fantasy. After the decidedly weird urban fantasy of Angel Mine it took Blyth another five years to come good with his second feature Death Warmed Up, a mad scientist zombie flick with action thriller overtones and the splatter that matters. Over the years the rush to canonise Peter Jackson has left this feisty shocker unfairly overlooked and even censored by the po-faced pedants at the Australian OFLC. Eyeball both flicks as you've never seen them at MUFF 2001.

Speaking of humour or the lack thereof consistently demonstrated by the OFLC who have continually sought to modify the films of Peter Jackson the New Zealander for whose work the term "Splatstick" had to be invented (Bad Taste, Braindead & The Frighteners have all been altered for Australian theatrical consumption — ironically Meet the Feebles is one of the few Jackson flicks to be passed uncut in Oz only encountering problems in its homeland) this is another aspect of New Zealand film that separates it from many Australian productions and also often goes overlooked due to many of the films grim surroundings.

Aberration a spam in a cabin monster flick that was shot in the same place as The Frighteners but from looking at it you'd be hard pressed to know that snow in Wellington is as rare as it is in Melbourne. The international success of Peter Jackson's work has paved the way for a series of younger filmmakers to break on through. Presently Scott Reynolds has the largest international profile for his films The Ugly and Heaven. The former, a harrowing trip through the mind of a serial killer, we're screening theatrically in Australia for the first time supported by the two dynamic shorts A Game With No Rules and The Minute, both of which also rightfully achieved international recognition for Reynolds. Gillian Ashurst is another brilliant new Kiwi filmmaker who recently completed her first feature road movie with supernatural overtones Snakeskin which, if you're up north late in July you can check out at BIFF. Luckily MUFF has been able to secure her two shorts the mysterious Venus Blue and the equally inscrutable Sci-Fi Betty, which poses the question what if former pin-up queen Betty Page turned up in modern day New Zealand?.

Robert Sarkies directed Scarfies a thriller about a bunch of students who move into a share house only to discover that the basement is evoted to a marijuana crop owned by Mr. Cruel. We rescue Scarfies from MIFF and video release oblivion along with a previous Sarkies short entitled Signing Off.

One of the most interesting and important films (it's also outsold every other film from the NZFC) to recently emerge from New Zealand is The Irrefutable Truth About Demons by Glenn Standring which you'll have to go to MIFF to see. At least MUFF 2001 will present his ground breaking sci fi short Lenny Minute which is currently being worked into a feature.

by Michael Helms

 
Screening times : (including Peter Jackson features)

All New Zealand Unbound films will screen at Treasury Theatre,
except for Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver, which screens at Kaleide, Sunday 8 July, 9pm.