New Zealand International Film Festival - Q&A with director Marten Rabarts

Welcome to 2020's festival, Marten - guessing it was not the start you had in mind?

Hi Darren - Not exactly! I started my position as Festival Director in October 2019 and as we put together the building blocks for the festival in February this year, COVID-19 came thundering down upon us … so I got to invent our first online festival from the ground up.

At what point did you realise the festival would have to change, and how difficult was that decision?

I began to understand we’d need to be making adjustments in early February when my flight back from Europe, after attending the Rotterdam Film Festival, was cancelled as Italy already started to close its borders to Asian Airlines. Experiencing this – I had to re-book, re -route, and cut my trip short as I was meant to go to Rome to screen Italian films after Rotterdam – and Italy being among those first directly affected outside China and Iran, it was a loud clanging warning bell.

As COVID-19 restrictions tightened in New Zealand, and lockdown approached, it became clear that we had a choice; either we cancel the festival entirely and forfeit a year of excellent filmmaking and community engagement, or we adapt and ensure our audiences have the same rich and broad curated programme we always do, but this time through a new medium – online streaming through our VOD (video on demand) platform.

Now that we’ve moved back to Level 1, and some cinemas are reopening, are you a little disappointed the festival can't make it fully back out to the movies?

Cinema screenings  will always be the beating heart of the festival but it takes six months to mount a festival and there was no way anyone could predict whether New Zealand would be in a position to allow social gatherings and cinema re-openings, but starting six weeks ago we managed  to introduce a hybrid situation where 26 titles will be screened in certain cinemas across the country. These are supplementary screenings … the full festival will be NZIFF At Home – Online as planned.

Logistically, what have been the issues for an online festival this year?

They were huge but largely arcane issues around technical demands of online delivery, digital security measures to prevent piracy, complex rights acquisitions for a festival screening on VOD platform, cinemas unhappy with us for taking the festival online; the same  cinemas unhappy with us offering them films to screen when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted … (shoulder shrug emoji) … it was endless and I just hope the difficulty and pain COVID-19 has put our team through is invisible to our viewers, as it should be.

But what do you see as the benefits for the festival's first at home fest?

Not every New Zealander lives in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. Even with all of the regions we commonly screen in across the country, New Zealanders living rurally can still be hours away from a cinema.

Moving online means that we have the ability, for the first time ever, to reach more Kiwis than ever before from Kaitaia to Bluff and everywhere (with broadband) in between.

What can punters expect?

Same Great Films , Same Great Festival … just online! Punters should get their screening set up ready and prepare for a selection of fantastic titles. 

We've had the We Are One Festival, how did you see that?

I wouldn’t call the We Are One YOUTUBE marketing venture a festival … in my evaluation it was a damp squib; a motley collection of mostly older films, some shorts  and a few regurgitated celebrity interviews from various festival archives.

There’s no comparison to what we’ll be offering which is the usual world-class curation of the past years’ finest cinema offerings which NZIFF audiences always expect from us.

Once a ticket is purchased, viewers will also be able to watch filmmaker introductions and Q&A sessions with cast  and crew which we are recording and streaming live for certain premiere titles. We’ll have many times more international guests than has ever been possible before!

This is another aspect showing NZIFF At Home – Online will be a FILM FESTIVAL not a global branding exercise for GOOGLE (parent company of YOUTUBE).

How has the lack of festivals like Cannes impacted the choice of films, have some distributors been reticent to premiere material on these shores?

Obviously Cannes is our usual source of big name ,big cast films so like the rest of the world we’re missing some of these titles as they wait to premiere at Venice and Toronto festivals  later in the year … but not to worry, as our catalogue shows, we have a fine selection of films from across the world including films from Venice and Toronto 2019, Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam, Locarno and even a couple from Cannes 2019 which slipped through the net of the NZIFF 2019 selection, which I’ve included this year.

What can you tell us about the platform it'll be on, how events will happen, films will happen and ticketing etc?

The great team at  Shift72 have created our NZIFF At Home – Online platform. These guys are working from a small Hamilton-based office and have made a name for themselves, internationally being the platform of choice for other film festivals like SXSW CPH:DOX Festival Copenhagen, Sydney and Melbourne film festivals and the Cannes Film Market.

Events will largely be online. Obviously with international travel being a pipedream, we couldn’t fly filmmakers in as we usually would so pre-recorded filmmaker intros will be available for selected titles, as well as Q&A live streams on our social media pages.

Part of cinema-goer culture is having lobby chats and discussions generated around the films, so we wanted to keep this flame burning as much as possible through our online presence. In saying that, now that we also have selected theatrical screenings, many of our New Zealand titles will have their world premiere screenings in cinemas and venues including in-person Q&A sessions with the local film teams. All “how to“ instructions are detailed on our website.

What film or event has you most excited this year and why?

Without having to worry about scoring a big comfortable Cannes title for a corporate-sponsored GALA opening event I’m excited to open the festival this year with a film that has as much speed-punk anarchy coursing through its veins as the outlaw rebel it portrays – Justin Kurzel’s dazzling and disturbing adaptation of Peter Carey’s masterpiece True History Of The Kelly Gang.

Its star-studded cast includes our own Thomasin McKenzie, Russell Crowe and Marlon Williams, alongside George MacKay (1917) Charlie Hunnam (Sons Of Anarchy), Essie Davis  (The Babadook) and Nicholas Hoult (The Favourite, X-Men) The film may divide audiences but it won’t be easily forgotten… 

Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival kicks off 24 July. Details on nziff.co.nz