November 4, 2010
Oh Baby, Baby
This Friday and Saturday night, film maker Julie Hill (who’s name you may recognise from her work at Radio New Zealand and on Frontseat ) is screening the premiere of her documentary, Baby where are the fine things you promised me? at the Film Archive.
The doco follows local actor Stephen Bain and his protest at being evicted to make way for the Wellington bypass. His solution was to build a house of his own he could afford – large enough for one human, a miniature piano and a small stove for making cups of tea. He then took it around the world.
The results, shot in Tasmania, Wanaka, Hobart and at a street art festival in Brittany, France, at shopping malls, arcades and busy city streets, are well worth a look.
The doco was introduced with an excerpt of a 1940s NFU film about the wondrous new plans for state housing (including a utopian development for Trentham that doesn’t seem to have been built as planned).
We’re now back in that same situation – where low- and middle-income households cannot afford to buy a house. Unless of course the house is a miniature installation art house.