NZIFF Q&A - East to East

NZIFF Q&A - East to East

My film is.... 
A story about a group of teenagers from Aranui High School, in East Christchurch, New Zealand, who are offered the opportunity to compete in the iconic Coast To Coast multisport race in tandem with three legends of the sport. Together with Steve Gurney, Nathan Fa'avae and Emily Miazga, they enter a world very different to their own.
Themes:
Overcoming adversity
Smashing boundaries, both mental and physical
Opening and inspiring minds

The moment I'm most proud of is.... 
Right now!   – I’m so proud to have this wee film selected for NZIFF.  I’m so delighted that we can share this story with a wider audience!

The reason I carried on with this film when it got tough is..... 
Because of the students themselves … if they can finish that race – I can finish this film!  There’s a moment at the end when Steve Gurney says “I get really emotional thinking that you can make a difference to someone”, and I think this sums it up.  In my mind the film was part of the journey for these students too.  It’s something they can see and feel, to help hold onto that feeling of accomplishment.  When things were tough, it was easy to be inspired by the students on the screen themselves.

The one moment that will resonate with an audience is....... 
When Taitama decides to pull out.  We’ve all been in a situation where it becomes too hard and we want to give up, and I think it is a moment that people will connect with and understand.  There’s also a point later in the film when we learn a bit more about Taitama’s history, and this helps to fill in the story and it’s very moving.

The hardest thing I had to cut from this film is........ 
There were some hilarious moments at McDonalds restaurant the day after the race.  Dan De Bont had rashly said he would shout them as much Maccers as they could eat, after the race.  And he did!  I took a camera but it didn’t make it to the final cut

The thing I want people to take from this film is ...... 
That you can achieve more than you think you can.
Rawiri Waaka (the students teacher) sums it up nicely when he talks about life being hard but it’s what you “do” that counts.   I hope people are inspired to get out there and make a difference – either in their community or in themselves!

The reason I love the NZIFF is....... 
They love film!  They celebrate it and shout about it!  Their programme is varied and there is always something for everyone.  Their support of local filmmakers is wonderful, and yet they manage to balance it with a fantastic selection of the top international films too.  I love being able to see shorts and features, docos and dramas in the one festival.
What the 50th NZIFF means to me is......
It’s a celebration of how much they have done over the last five decades, and a great way to look forward to the next 50 years!  What an honour to be a part of their history!

Shoplifters: NZIFF Review

Shoplifters: NZIFF Review

Shoplifters' tale of a Japanese family living in the slum downtrodden house is meant to shock from its beginning.

With the opening seeing a father and son stealing from a supermarket in a co-ordinated military style set of precision manoeuvres, we're thrown into the family world of the Shibatas.

Living in low income and scraping by, the family's world is changed when the father brings home a little girl he sees living outside a house with no apparent parents nearby. As the girl doesn't want to go home and shows signs of abuse, despite the strain on the family, they keep her within their walls, a family giving love to an unknown.

However, that decision could prove as fateful as it will fruitful.

Subtle and perhaps aiming to provoke empathy throughout, without ever being manipulative Kore-eda's social eye on the affliction of some Japanese families is also a salutation to uncompromising love.

With her big eyes, and cute haircut, the abused little girl is never anything more than a tool to win over the audience, and to cast light on the insidious ways of abuse, so redolent worldwide that it hurts.

While there's humour in this social tale, there's also an undercurrent of anger that Kore-eda provokes in you that this family have to go through so much to just get by. But presented under a sunnier outlook, Kore-eda manages to make proceedings warmer than they perhaps should be, a chance to push a message in ways that could otherwise not work.

The Palmes D'Or winner Kore-eda Hirokazu's Shoplifting is a story that may move you, but ultimately, its last reel reveal feels cheap and easy, a narrative rug-pull aimed to disorientate and reassess.

What it actually does is make you question why some of the characters you've invested in over the past two hours don't do the one thing you'd expect them to. It's a unsettling turn and leaves an after-taste which is hard to shift (and which is too spoilery to discuss here).

While Kore-eda Hirokazu may wish to be saluting love and family in all its forms, and present a world similar to one glimpsed in Sean Baker's The Florida Project by centring on the children, Shoplifters' strength lies in its interactions within the family.

Some threads may go undernourished, and while the reveals at the end may pull together some of the looser ends, there are similar themes of family that Kore-eda has pursued before. Granted, this latest may see a more broken family than previously, but the social realism captured within is nonetheless heartbreaking throughout. And certainly the burst of consciousness and guilt is never belaboured throughout.

A thoughtful piece, but a flawed masterpiece to some, Shoplifters' strength lies in its willingness to expose the double standards of Japanese society - and ultimately, the hypocrisies and selfishness of us all.

First Reformed: NZIFF Review

First Reformed: NZIFF Review

Taxi Driver director Paul Schrader's return centres around the loss of faith, and the questioning of our place in the world when disillusionment comes knocking.

A rarely better Ethan Hawke plays country priest Reverend Toller, who preaches in the First Reformed church to no more than a handful of parishoners. The church has been largely abandoned in favour of the bigger flashier mega church Abundant Life nearby (headed up by Cedric the Entertainer's pastor).

Deciding to carry out an experiment of writing a diary for a year under the self-examination of "When writing about one's self, one should show no mercy", (a form of self-flagellation perhaps?) Toller's world changes when new parishoner Mary (Amanda Seyfried) asks him to counsel her despondent-at-the-state-of-the-world husband.

But Toller's world begins to spiral down when his own doubts, and ailments boil further up, threatening to erupt in an explosive manner.

First Reformed's carefully choreographed descent is a compelling and, at times, unsettling and frightening watch.

Subtleties and nuances point to where the intensity of the story is going, but the shocks when it heads that way are none the less impactful for it. The crisis of faith can not only be confined to Toller, but to many in the world we currently inhabit - Schrader's universal worries are unsettling and frighteningly common.

Hawke delivers a thoughtful and crafted turn as Toller, a man for whom anger seems the right and righteous path to take - and certainly, the shocking elements work well as Hawke's way of selling the path seem logical and even empathetically understandable. Troubles and torment swirl together in one ugly brew, but Hawke never portrays Toller as a less than human figure grappling for his own soul and peace of mind.

There's also a seething in Schrader's story here - an anger at corporate negligence and buyouts of morals; a betrayal at how life can be abused; there's much to dwell on in Schrader's swelling play as he levels at the unswerving forces of destruction eating away at our planet and our souls. Certainly, there are elements of Taxi Driver that swoop unexpectedly in, similarities too hard to ignore.

First Reformed's descent is all too plausible; its crisis of faith all too familiar and its current world despondency all too engrossing.

What First Reformed does is more than allude to Schrader's past. There are theological discussions to delve into, and a polarising ending that will provoke much debate - this is a film that burns with an intensity, and burns with a longer life after the lights have gone up.

In The Aisles: NZIFF Review

In The Aisles: NZIFF Review

Set within the microcosm of a supermarket, German film In The Aisles (aka In Den Gangen) mixes social commentary with sentiment.

A young Joaquin Phoenix lookalike, Franz Rogoswki is Christian, a juvenile offender given a second chance with a stock job at the supermarket. Muted and generally silent, and detached, Christian's paired up with Bruno and begins to learn the ropes of working the night restocking job.

However, when he sees Toni Erdmann's Sandra Huller's Marion (aka Miss Sweet Goods because of where she works), he falls instantly for her, finding his reason to try to want a better life for himself.

In Den Gangen has little in the way of plot that propels it along, or tension (aside from whether Christian will actually get his forklift licence), but what it does is present a picture of how society interacts when forced to do so.

Director Thomas Stuber draws together his cast to deliver some deadpan lines, and comments that amuse greatly early on. He has also an eye for the absurdity of this microcosm, as well as the beauty of smaller interactions.

The film opens with the Blue Danube before a carefully choreographed clutch of forklifts dance in and out of the aisles, each moving in time with the music and each moving like ballet dancers. It's a hypnotic start that finds beauty in the most mundane of worlds. Even some of Christian's early inactions in the aisles have the touches of silent comedy about them, as his learning curve begins.

But as the scope of the film widens out, and we glimpse a world outside of the supermarket, there's an ugliness of what lies beyond the walls. It's an intriguing touch that presents the outside as something less than savoury, and of how workers forced together create their own little universes with little or no eyes to what lies beyond.

The latter third of the film revels in a sombre tone and there's certainly a discord in reconciling some of the apparent gentle giant Christian's actions to the tender portrait that emerged earlier on. Disappointingly, Stuber has no interest in dealing with the moral issues, choosing to pursue his ideal to the end.

And certainly as In Den Gangen continues, there's a feeling the film's grown out past its short story elements, as its plies the camaraderie with elements of tenderness. And the stalking is troublesome at best, an almost betrayal of the sweet nature of those living on the peripherary of what's considered the norm.

Ultimately, the melancholy In The Aisles is an intriguing film, an examination of the social microcosm of the shift workers, and a small salutary piece extolling the virtues of daily inconsequential interactions.

The Green Fog: NZIFF Review

The Green Fog: NZIFF Review

The Green Fog is a film which really defies review in many ways.

In assembling footage from over 100 San Francisco set TV series and movies, director Guy Maddin's done something akin to turning on a radio and cycling repeatedly through channels, with the static inadvertently creating a narrative by mistake more than by design.

However, design is the big thing for Maddin here, with the assemblage working well in some parts and less well in others.

Some scenes feel shoehorned in (mainly the latter day material in honesty) but for the large part, the assemblage of classic material works well, with scenes interlaid like a giant overlaying jigsaw and segueing cleverly into each other.

The Green Fog is funny too, with an extended Chuck Norris sequence providing inadvertent humour over similar facials and cheesy looks. There's also a clever obliteration of dialogue throughout, with loops and looks giving more than anything else could to convey something - it's cleverly done in many ways.

But it's also frustrating for those non- cinephiles as well - certainly, there's an overall feeling that The Green Fog itself which pops up here and now has little to do with anything, and there's no definite clue as to what it's supposed to be come the "film's" conclusion.

There's an anarchy present in The Green Fog, and thankfully it doesn't outstay its welcome - but it's overly smart and smug at times, a cinephile's wet dream and a scrambled San Francisco broadcast that bemuses more than anything.

Aga: NZIFF Review

Aga: NZIFF Review

Opening with potentially one of the most visually arresting images of the festival, genial and benign in its intentions, Aga is an intriguing, minimalist slice of slow cinema.

Set in a location unknown, but against a backdrop of snowy wastelands, it's the story of an old couple, Nanook and Sedna.

This duo, old and wizened, but clearly blessed with a love for each other that's endured more than just the harsh winters on show, spend their time in their yurt, living the traditions of their ancestors.

From ice-fishing to lying back in a snow angel on the frozen wastes as a plane and its chem-trails head over, life is simple. But it's becoming more of a struggle for this duo - and with life encroaching on them, things are about to cataclysmically change.

Subtle and slow, Aga's take on climate change and the impact on smaller lives cannot be underestimated.

Equally, director Milko Lazarov's eye for some truly impressive vistas demands to be seen on the biggest screen. Whether it's the aformentioned opening shot, or the subsequent shot of Nanook looking like an ant as he rides across the white wastelands in a dog-pulled sled, the visuals are astounding.

But if the scope of the visuals are vast, the intent of the drama is intimate.

Slow in its unveiling, deliberate in its pacing, and microcosmic in its moments, Aga revels in its revelations. Its connection to nature is apparent and inherent, and the commentary from without by the viewer will require some joining of the dots, but that's by no means a bad thing.

Aga won't be to everyone's tastes, but this slice from the Berlin Film Festival is an intriguing offering, that haunts with both melancholy and elegance.

The Ice King: NZIFF Review

The Ice King: NZIFF Review

A doco that's as much about showing the balletics of ice skating as it is interested in delving into its protagonist's torture, James Erskine's The Ice King celebrates John Curry.

To be frank, he's possibly a name that's less familiar to some, but Erskine's fulsome piece could ensure that changes - and Curry becomes known more about his ice-capades than being thrust into the spotlight after securing a gold medal at the 70s Olympics and coming out "off the record."

Using voiceover interviews, rather than endless talking heads, and with letters from Curry himself helping to sell and tell the story, The Ice King is not really your traditional documentary and also not really your traditional sports story.

"Whatever greatness I possess, there are demons of equal value" is a phrase uttered twice in this piece, and it becomes clear that Curry's life is haunted, blighted by reaction from his father to his desire to learn ballet and by the melancholy which hits his life as it goes on.

Interestingly though, Erskine only really ever skates around the issue of the depression and it comes more strongly to light in the back half of the film where Curry's time outside of the skating spotlight and as he toured with his own company becomes more relevant.

It's helped little by the fact hardly much archive material of Curry's skating exists, so there are times when it feels like the film dwells too long on one performance. And yet, watching Curry at work, is mesmerising, a confluence of skill and desire, sadness and loneliness all wrapped up in one performance (regardless of whether it's handheld footage from an audience, or intercutting ballet with his interpretation of the similar).

Erskine uses reasonable aplomb to pull the story together, and this Storyville entrant is certainly solid enough, but while it's balanced and compact, it never fully feels like the rub of the man is actually fully exposed.

It's a muted piece, that enlightens and enthralls occasionally, but never fully grips when the spotlight shifts from what Curry could do on the ice - at the end, he still remains an enigma to the audience.