Short film finalists unveiled for NZ International Film Festival

Short film finalists unveiled for NZ International Film Festival

FINALISTS FOR NEW ZEALAND’S BEST ANNOUNCED FOR 2013 FILM FESTIVAL

Six short films have been selected as finalists for the New Zealand International Film Festival’s New Zealand’s Best Short Film Competition.

The films will compete for three cash prizes, with winners to be announced at the closing night of the Auckland leg of NZIFF. The six finalists are Tom’s Dairy (dir: Oscar Kightley), Blind Mice (dir: Walter Lawry), I’m Going to Mum’s (dir: Lauren Jackson), Interim (dir: Dan Kircher), Friday Tigers (dir: Aidee Walker) and Here Now (dir: Chelsie Preston-Crayford).

The New Zealand’s Best programme will screen as part of the 2013 NZIFF and audiences will be asked to choose a winner. A jury of three will select the winners of the $5000 Madman Entertainment Jury Prize and the $3000 Friends of the Civic Award. The winner of the Audience vote in Auckland and Wellington takes away 25% of the box office from the Festival screenings in the four main centres.

Winners for the Madman Entertainment Jury Award and the Friends of the Civic Jury Award will be chosen by three judges: Metro Magazine editor Simon Wilson, Michael Eldred for Madman Entertainment and veteran film producer Bridget Ikin (An Angel at My Table, My Year Without Sex, The Rocket, William Yang: My Generation).

Guest selector and international filmmaker Alison Maclean selected the six finalists from a shortlist of 12. Festival programmers Bill Gosden and Michael McDonnell viewed 91 entries to prepare the shortlist.

 “These films found ways to open up unfamiliar worlds and make the familiar more potent. From my now slightly outsider perspective, it was thrilling to watch these shorts - so much talent and skill in every department and, in separate, unique ways, a real authorial voice coming through... I can't wait to see what these filmmakers do next,” says Alison Maclean.

The finalists are:

Tom’s Dairy (13min)

World Premiere

New Zealand 2013

Director: Oscar Kightley

A poignant and humorous short film about a young boy growing up in West Auckland in 1981.

Blind Mice (15min)

World Premiere

New Zealand 2013

Director: Walter Lawry

In the small Auckland drug scene, a young woman, Jules, finds her life complicated by an unwanted pregnancy.

I’m Going to Mum’s (13min)

New Zealand 2013

Director: Lauren Jackson

Jacob is eight years old and his parents dress him funny. Stuck in the middle of a fresh divorce he takes drastic fashion action to make himself heard.

Interim

Interim (15min)

World Premiere

New Zealand 2013

Director: Dan Kircher

A young and green police officer is implicated in the assault of an arrestee.

Friday Tigers (Nga Taika o Te Ramere) (16min)

World Premiere

New Zealand 2013

Director: Aidee Walker

When an unexpected friendship threatens Ana’s secret world, can she find the courage to deal with her past for the sake of her future?

 

Here Now

Here Now (14min)

World Premiere

New Zealand 2013

Director: Chelsie Preston-Crayford

Inspired by Lena Dunham's Girls, Here Now explores the dilemma of the modern day twenty-something. Tess and her friends have no problems, but are they really living?

Dr Who - The Aztecs: Special Edition: DVD Review

Dr Who - The Aztecs: Special Edition: DVD Review

Rating: G
Released by BBC and Roadshow Home Entertainment

Back to 1964 for this classic slice of sci fi black and white historical Doctor Who drama.

When William Hartnell's Doctor materialises the TARDIS in Mexico in the 15th Century, they soon discover danger. And things get worse when Barbara's mistaken for the reincarnation of an Aztec high priest. As she believes she can change history....

There's a great central dilemma here and it's well played out by Jacqueline Hill and William Hartnell as the ideals clash. It's a little stuffy in places and takes a bit of time to get going - but it's certainly worth the wait.

The greatest part of this special edition is the release of the missing episode three of serial Galaxy 4 which was rediscovered after years thought abandoned. As the recreation of the missing parts showed, it's a wonder when these episodes are discovered.

Extras: Commentary, docos, production notes - and a good piece of restoring the serial

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Dr Who: The Visitation: Special Edition: DVD Review

Dr Who: The Visitation: Special Edition: DVD Review

Rating: PG
Released by BBC and Roadshow Home Entertainment

And so the re-releasing of the classic Dr Who series continues.

The latest to be given the special edition treatment is the serial from Peter Davison's fifth Doctor which is set in 1666 London as the country's gripped by the Great Plague. But there's an even greater threat lurking in the background.

A relatively straight forward story, The Visitation is 80s Who at its most brisk and historically factual. With three companions to juggle the writers cope brilliantly with the story. The period feel is brilliantly brought to life and the story is engaging throughout for fans of the sci fi genre.

As for the DVD extras, the standard is relatively high; the best piece sees Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson brought back to BBC TV centre; and another extra takes on the audio stories; they're great touches and nostalgic in look and feel which is perfect for the centenary.

Extras: Commentary, docos, production notes, easter eggs

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Shopping Q and A with director Louis Sutherland

Shopping Q and A with director Louis Sutherland

New Zealand movie Shopping hits cinemas on Thursday and I caught up with director Louis Sutherland to discuss the film ahead of the Wellington premiere at The Embassy Theatre tonight.

Tell us how you came up with the story for Shopping – how do you even begin with this?
We have always drawn from our kiwi heritage when creating the foundations of a story for our films. Our Short films Run and The Six Dollar Fifty Man and now our debut feature film, Shopping, are all inspired by bits and pieces of our lives. The fact we went to the same schools and grew up in the same beach side village means we have a shared language here. We were first forced to put pen to paper for Shopping when we went over to the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and needed something to discuss with distributors and sales people in the market place. We wrote the first story outline on a 24hour flight there. The bones of the narrative were there but it was pretty bloody terrible...

The attention to period detail is stunning – how did you manage to do that?

Again it starts with a strong understanding of where the world comes from. All the details are something we both lived and breathed through as youngies (and that's a long time ago) and were something we were both quite protective about re-creating. But of course pulling that detail off and realising it 20-30 odd years later comes down to our great team. Josh O'Neill and Lucy Mclay, production designer and wardrobe designer respectively, were stellar in pulling this era off for us. The fruitiness in the frame is not only accurate to the day but also off-sets some of the dramatic tones in the film. We know they, along with other heads of departments in our team such as fantastic director of Photography Ginny Loane, had many sleepless nights on a tight budget to help bring our vision to life.

The child actors in Shopping are wonderfully natural – tell us how you managed to cast these first time actors
We like to cast our films ourselves, We street cast the young actors in Shopping from shopping malls, colleges and primary schools. We try to choose people that have come from a similar place to the characters, and have similar attributes. For young cast you really need be looking in schools and on the
streets. Nicky Caro did it with Keisha Castle-Hughes, Jane Campion with Anna Paquin and Lee Tamahori cast Tangaroa Emile. There is an overwhelming amount of talent out there that don’t realise that they have ‘it’. You just have to roll up your sleeves and find it.

How did you grow their relationship – the bond they share in the film is heart-warming, natural and inspirational – was that easy to achieve?
Like any relationship, it took time. Our job was firstly to strengthen a bond, almost like uncles to them both, so they each trusted us. Then once we’d made strong ties with them we kind of slowly grew them together. Putting our lead actor Kevin (Willy) in the driving seat whenever he was with Julian (Solomon) gave him an big brother status. Kevin was given more responsibility and in the swimming lessons for example he became Julian's rock so to speak. Julian began to look up to him,and Kevin began to grow a sense of responsiblity to
him..The relationship seemed real because it was real. Above all though it came down to casting two young people that were intelligent, brave and pretty damn good actors to boot.

Shot in Wellington and with a cast of Wellington in many ways, how much did the capital play a part in the shaping of the film?
We come from the Kapiti Coast. Like any piece of geography it has its own energy and beauty. We were lucky growing up really in such a captivating place. Being able to use the coast as a backdrop to our films has been a blessing visually but also it always seems to be there for us somehow. Like we were told by Joe Nolan our first AD shooting through May in Wellington would be sketchy. ‘It’ll be sideways rain’ and as Wellingtonians we knew he was right so got all our wet weather gear ready. We can honestly say everyday we had an exterior in Paekakariki the sun shone. 70% of our film was shot outside and we were gettingot back to back to back sunsets.. Thank you Kapiti! People around the world have asked us where where we found our magical locations. We tell them ‘at home’. Film Wellington and the Kapiti Coast District council were very supportive and after having shot commercials all over the world it’s the easiest region to shoot in. Every chance we get we shoot here!

What was the first scene shot for the film?
Actually it was in Nae Nae where we found an amazing old dairy that looked just like the old one in Raumati beach when we were kids.

What was that like – getting to see the dream become a reality given that this is your debut feature film?

Bloody exciting all the way through the process. It wasn’t until we premiered in Sundance though to a room full of people that we really realised we’d done it -it's weird but that's when it hit us. Otherwise you are so busy head down, ass up you kind of don’t see the scenery passing or feel you are getting anywhere. It's just losing yourself in a very elongated journey with various creative demands.

It’s quite bleak in places, but offers up a lot of hope at the end; were you ever conscious that this story needed to have a resolution such as this?
We always earn our endings when we write. We heard some people write their ending and write toward it. We kind of start at the beginning and see where we end up - certainly for Shopping anyway. We penned about 20 different endings through the six years we wrote it. What was always important to us is that there was a feeling of hope, of achievement and change in the world of the film. We have never liked leaving the theatre feeling short changed as audience members so wanted to show our audience the same respect. This said, it's far from a classic Hollywood happy vanilla flavoured ending. That was never our intent.

What’s your favourite moment from the film – and why?
Probably many of the scenes with Kevin and Julian playing together. There are so many moments where they just shine in the film. They really free up the tone and allow us light and joy into the scenes. We loved watching them being together on set. Sometimes they made us forget we were actually making a film. They were that natural.

You’ve taken the film to Sundance, how has that experience been?
It's a real step up with a feature from winning there in 2010 with a short film. It's the biggest market and you realise pretty quickly that unless you have super heroes, a double figure body count, or an A-list american actor you aren’t going to create too many ripples. It's American-centric and so it should be as it's ultimately about their market place. We also learnt that in America we will need to subtitle this film. Apparently we have very thick accents although damned if we can hear it.
This film also went to Berlin where we won the Grand Prix (Best Film) prize in the generation section. We found the European audience to be a lot more multicultural and open to an international voice. 1200 people watched our opening night screening in Berlin and you could hear a pin drop at the climax of the film. They loved it. We really enjoyed the experience and it made us consider how we wanted to approach our next film project ‘Hell's Teeth’. More on that though in the months ahead...

You’ve had a taste of the awards life before with the Six Dollar Fifty Man, how does this compare?
Much the same really. Winning is winning eh. But where we really feel the burn is back at home. See here it's not about awards or international acclaim. It's about acceptance from our people. It's about kiwis going and watching a film we made essentially about them,. Our people's acceptance is more important than anything we could bring home from off-shore. Simple reason is because this is home, we grew up here and our kids will grow up here. Last thing we want is to have to avoid the neighbors until the next film because they think
we’re dicks...

What’s your next project?
Our next film is called ‘Hell's Teeth’. As Shopping was like our first short film Run growing up. ‘Hell's Teeth’ will be like The Six Dollar Fifty man grown up. It’s set on the Kapiti Coast again and is inspired by a friendship that Mark had. It’s a film about how a 16 year old boy uncovers his talents that lay hidden under
a painter's drop sheet in the family garage.....

Soul Sacrifice: PS Vita Review

Soul Sacrifice: PS Vita Review

Released by Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PS Vita

It's been a wee bit quiet on the VITA front for a little bit, but it looks like that's about to change as winter rolls in.

A Vita version of the Jak and Daxter trilogy's coming soon and I'm sure there'll be some reveals at E3 2013 - but for now, it's time to content yourself with a game of sorcery and really nasty looking creatures. Plus a talking book, called Librom, with some funny looking eyes.

As the game begins, you find yourself in a cell, and are potentially about to be consumed by an evil sorcerer named Magusar. When your cellmate is consumed, it looks as if all is lost - until a book ends up in your cell and begins talking to you offering you a shot at salvation and giving you the powers you need to take down Magusar.

The shot includes taking part in a series of mini combats with one other sorcerer within the pages of the book and building up your repertoire of armour and weapons. But you also face choices - you can sacrifice the creatures you combat to boost either your magic (dark sacrifice) or your life force (light sacrifice).

Soul Sacrifice is another of those bite size games, whose episodic feel makes it suitable to the portable environment. Each level takes a few minutes to complete as you play through the challenges of the journal and fight your way to the knowledge needed to save the day. Through combat and reward, you build up what you need and learn as you go.

Graphically, it's fine, nothing sensational for the OLED screen but it certainly looks slick and is playable enough without sacrificing game play time for loading up the different levels. A constant ability to save means that you won't find yourself battling for ages with no chance of retaking up the fight afterwards.

The Librom character is quite fun - an ominous voiceover adds to the level of menace from a talking book - and the short nature of Soul Sacrifice renders it relatively playable. It's nothing fabulously new for the VITA - there's hardly any use of the VITA's extra features, but it's good fun for a few hours here and there.


Rating:

The Great Gatsby: Movie Review

The Great Gatsby: Movie Review

Cast: Leonardo di Caprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher
Director: Baz Luhrmann

So, with much pomp and ceremony, director Baz Luhrmann's take on F Scott Fitzgerald's book (and the fifth movie to be made since 1926) arrives.

It's late in the 1920s and on Long Island where we join Tobey Maguire's Nick Carraway, who's recovering in a sanitarium and recounting the story of millionaire playboy Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and how their paths crossed at the height of the roaring twenties.(1922 to be precise).

Carraway's cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) also shares a connection to Gatsby - five years ago, they were in love when he disappeared at war. So, she married Joel Edgerton's Tom Buchanan, and apparently moved on. But when Daisy reconnects with Gatsby, it throws all manner of spanners into the lavish works with Tom suspecting her of an affair, even though he's cavorting with another woman (played by Isla Fisher).

The Great Gatsby movie is all manner of spectacle and unfortunately, all lacking in real soul.

It starts off with real energy and sumptuous excesses as a visual symphony explodes before your very eyes. Using CGI and plenty of shots of a camera pulling away, Luhrmann sets a wonderfully evocative film as Tobey Maguire's haunted and laconic (almost stoned) voice-over plays out.

Through dizzying shots, Luhrmann cramming as many people as he can into any given party scene and ramping up an old school soundtrack with current musical sensibilities, his sense of delivery as a director borders on the OTT in places. Luxurious elegance crams every corner of every frame and opulence flows from the screen as the 3D use falls into place and the myth of the mysterious playboy Gatsby is fuelled. Plus Luhrmann uses lines from the text to sing out from the screen, which is evocative, innovative and respectful of the source material.

And yet, once the scene is set and the reveal of Gatsby himself is done (a scene where a grinning Cheshire cat style DiCaprio turns around as fireworks go off in the background is so crammed with cheese you can almost taste it), the fizz and sparkle of this spectacle goes limp.

It's no criticism of the acting on show, more a realisation that once the pomp and vulgar opulence have faded, the human element needs to come into play and it simply becomes a story of a thwarted love and a condemnation of the American Dream in the 1920s and the excesses of the times for the rich. Di Caprio impresses as Gatsby, as he struggles to put on a performance as the rich millionaire playboy; Maguire looks laconic and a bit disinterested as Carraway, the narrator of the piece; Joel Edgerton manages the best he can of a one-note character and Carey Mulligan is fairly wispy and ethereal as Daisy, managing to not entirely convince as a love interest.

The Great Gatsby is more a case of style over substance I'm afraid; it's a film of scale, but one which is built on very little foundation. It's hard to care for or even about any of the characters in the central story as the doomed love story plays out. Interestingly unlike the characters in Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, you don't connect in the same way and it renders the final feeling as one of indifference and detachment rather than romantic longing. Maybe it's a flaw of not having read the book that I don't get that these characters are supposed to be wrapped up in all their own worlds (even though Carraway hints at how sickened he is by life).

Shallow and a little hollow, The Great Gatsby movie is impressive in places and aesthetically astounding - but it can't match the ambition of its director and its first half in terms of narrative.

A sudden change of pace and direction in the second half leaves you a little floundering and hoping that the overlong production would come to an end. Despite the wondrous costuming and period detail, the charm of Di Caprio and his acting, not once was my heart touched - and for a doomed love story that is the Great Gatsby movie, that's a fatal flaw.

Rating:

Shopping: Movie Review

Shopping: Movie Review

Cast: Kevin Paulo, Julian Dennison, Jacek Koman, Alistair Browning
Directors: Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland

From the writers of the award nominated The Six Dollar Fifty Man comes the first foray into feature film making.

It's New Zealand 1981 - a time of racial tensions between the Samoans and New Zealanders. Brothers Willie and Solomon are caught up in the middle of this in their own ways. Solomon, the youngest of the two, is lost in a world of his own and knows only the guiding light of his older brother, Willie. But Willie's on the verge of making his way into the real world, starting with driving lessons from his father Terry.

However, when Terry lets Willie down over the lessons, Willie's relationship with his father is strained. Tempted into a world of theft after a chance encounter with charismatic thief and immigrant Bennie (Koman), Willie discovers a family bond, lacking in his own life.

With the possibility of this surrogate father taking him in, Willie's keen to do anything to impress - but his immersion into Bennie's world sets him on a collision course with disaster.

Shopping is an at times, bleak and darkly put together film festival-like tale.

Beautifully shot (on the Kapiti coast) and wonderfully evocative of the era (the attention to period detail is stunning), it's a tale which takes a little while to unfold but when it finally does so, does very well.

It helps that the two young leads are gifted natural actors; Paulo, a first time actor, imbues Willie with a nuanced performance that's subtle and restrained. He manages to convey the inner turmoil and the mix of confusion and anger well without any real over-acting. Likewise, the young Dennison helps build a realistic bond with his brother which feels natural and warm.

Inevitably, the film follows the NZ norm and uncovers some nasty home truths of beatings and so on, but rather than over-indulge in that side of it, the story wisely veers away from indulging in the domestic issues (which aren't quite as strong as the other story threads) and concentrates on Willie's inauguration into the thieves' world. Though, it has ventured to the Sundance Festival this year and played there, which is extremely commendable.

A mix of meandering narrative in the early stages and tension set the scene well and when the final explosion comes as Willie's two worlds meet, you are gripped by what unfolds as the misery comes home to roost with a real blow to the senses.

Thankfully, the film wisely ends on the relationship between the two brothers - and it's a good choice to help cinemagoers leave with some form of optimism. Because the main heart of the film is this bond and it's in those moments that it brings something unique and magical to the screen.

Rating: