Wintec News

The future of film

Posted On: Wednesday, 11 August 2010. By Stephanie Fawcett, Wintec journalism student

The future of documentary film making in New Zealand will be discussed at Wintec’s Spark festival this Friday.

A panel of contemporary New Zealand filmmakers will talk about their experiences at a forum at Hamilton’s Lido Cinema on August 13.

Filmmakers Kay Ellmers, Jane Reeves and Jim Marbrook will discuss the challenges in making documentaries at a time when funding is tight.

Filmmaker and Wintec moving image tutor John Mandelberg says it is a great opportunity to hear about experiences in the industry. “Essentially, it’s a freelance world and it is very difficult in New Zealand to earn a full time wage from film making.”

Mandelberg hopes that the forum will help inject a little bit of reality into the fantasy of film making.

“Most New Zealand film makers have other jobs on the side,” he says. “I teach, Jim Marbrook teaches at AUT, Vincent Ward, who directed River Queen, works in Australia making commercials.”

Panelist Kay Ellmers, who is head of Tūmanako Productions, says one of the biggest issues facing documentary making is funding.

“In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, both TVNZ and TV3 were commissioning and showing some great New Zealand-made documentaries, but in the last few years that’s pretty much ended,” she says.

The film forum will be held at the Lido Cinema on Friday August 13 at 2.30pm. It is open to the public and free.

There are a number of screenings at the Lido on Friday including Banksy’s ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’. For more details go to www.spark.net.nz