Author: Anna

Talk talk (and watch)

The Film Archive is mix­ing things up a little for the next three weeks. 

On three con­sec­ut­ive Thursdays (start­ing this week) speak­ers from the Edu­ca­tion team and one spe­cial guest will talk along­side rare and inter­est­ing foot­age from the col­lec­tions.

The series is called Talk/Show (just to make it obvi­ous) and it’s a nice depar­ture from the usu­al screen­ing pro­gramme. 

First up is a ses­sion on Wel­ling­ton and its unique geo­graphy and set­tle­ment. Some great foot­age in here includ­ing doc­u­ment­ary extracts, early silent foot­age, gov­ern­ment and unof­fi­cial sources and early home movies.

Will be a fas­cin­at­ing and inform­at­ive look at this rainy, windy, steep place we choose to call home! 

 

Brazil – da da da, da, da, da, da, daaaaaa

This clas­sic film is screen­ing on 35mm on the big screen at the Film Archive every night this week at 7pm.

 

Terry Gil­li­am’s bril­liant “Nine­teen eighty-four for 1984” is beloved by film buffs around the globe for obvi­ous reas­ons, and yes, it’s in the Film Archive’s extens­ive col­lec­tion.

If you haven’t seen it you must. And if you have seen it you’ll know why you should go and see it again.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNnRBksvOU]

Land of the Long White Cloud

“The brain is a multi-faceted thing that thinks about all sorts of things, mostly bull­shit. Where­as a fish doesn’t. A fish only thinks about eat­ing, repro­duc­tion, and stay­ing alive. A bit like the kiwi male, prob­ably.…” loc­al fish­er­man Neil Moody.

Flori­an Habicht’s latest doc­u­ment­ary Land of the Long White Cloud is full of fish­ing and philo­sophy and def­in­itely worth a peek. Cur­rently screen­ing at the Film Archive for three weeks it’s a look into the hearts and minds of fish­er­men and women, as they com­pete for $50,000 in the 90 Mile Beach ‘Snap­per Clas­sic’ – the world’s largest snap­per fish­ing con­test. 

“Must be seen” – Nation­al Radio
“An injec­tion of Awe­some” – 95BFM

Wed­nes­day to Sat­urday nights at 7pm until 27 Feb­ru­ary 
at the Film Archive cinema, corner of Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts.

Tick­ets: $14 adult, $12 con­ces­sion, $10 seni­ors, $9 chil­dren

 

The Verlaines and the VBC!

Woo hoo – this is going to be a big one.

Pre­s­ales are avail­able now for The Ver­laines – live in Wel­ling­ton at SFBH on Wed­nes­day Decem­ber 9 (which just hap­pens to be my birth­day – thanks guys!)

Hav­ing just released a new album ‘Cor­por­ate Mor­on­ic’, don’t miss the chance to wit­ness one of the great Fly­ing Nun bands, who haven’t played here for ages!

It’s also the VBC Christ­mas party!  

Pre­s­ales $20, avail­able now from Real Groovy, Under the Radar + the VBC.

 

Under the Southern Cross

A safe place to avoid all the ghouls and zom­bies this Sat­urday night will be the Film Archive cinema.

A bril­liant silent fea­ture film from the 1920s – Under the South­ern Cross – is screen­ing with live music­al accom­pani­ment by War­ren Max­well, Maaka McGregor and Himi­ona Grace.  

This “Maori folk drama” made by Uni­ver­sal Stu­di­os in 1929, fea­tures an epic love tri­angle, cave scenes shot on Waitomo and White Islands, a fiery vol­cano and ‘A Con­test of Spears’. It’s also worth com­ing to see for the inter­titles alone.  

“Neither tri­bal cus­tom, danger nor the sac­red ban of “tapu” could cover­come the strength of his love” 

Lim­ited seats avail­able. Tick­ets: $10

Bring your speedos

Tomor­row night at the St Cath­er­ine’s Col­lege Hall in Kil­birnie, the WCC is hold­ing a pub­lic meet­ing to gauge com­munity opin­ion on the fate of the Maranui Surf Lifesav­ing Club and the adja­cent three water­front build­ings, and to dis­cuss the options.

The Maranui club house is a lis­ted her­it­age build­ing, dam­aged by fire on 1 August. 

A call has been put out (see today’s Cap­it­al Times art­icle) for Wel­ling­ton’s cre­at­ive types to come and show their sup­port and with people being encour­aged to come along in their speedos it’s going to be an enter­tain­ing night! 

Who says pub­lic meet­ings can­’t be fun!? 

If you’re out of town, you can sign the online peti­tion here to restore the build­ing to its former glory. 

13 artists getting a little freaky on it!

Tomor­row eve, come to the Film Archive and wit­ness the unveil­ing of The Blue Room, a group show includ­ing (lucky num­ber) 13 artists who were asked to respond ‘in a psych­ic way’ to an idea, site or place. Some of the res­ults are quite start­ling.

Cur­ated by Pippa Sander­son the show fea­tures Wel­ling­to­ni­ans Bek Pilcher, Johanna Sanders and Pippa Sander­son, with Elle Loui August, Bekah Car­ran, Louise Clifton, Andrea du Chaten­i­er, Viol­et Faigan, Lon­nie Hutchin­son, Saskia Leek, Louise Men­zies, Dane Mitchell and Stu­art Shep­herd.

Some are believ­ers, some skep­tics, but all raise ques­tions about the fas­cin­a­tion with the psych­ic that haunts us now – the tele­vi­sion pro­grammes, the inter­net sites devoted to spells and spectres, the tour­ing psych­ics…

All wel­come at the open­ing, 5:30pm tomor­row, plus there’s an Artist Talk at the Archive 12:15pm, Tues­day 27 Octo­ber.

The exhib­i­tion runs until Sat­urday 21 Novem­ber 2009. 

The future of Lyall Bay

Right now the Domin­ion Post is run­ning a pub­lic opin­ion poll on the future of the Maranui Surf Club and Cafe. 

At this stage the Coun­cil’s pre­ferred option appears to be demol­ish­ing Maranui and its three adja­cent build­ings to cre­ate a brand spank­ing new “Super Build­ing”. You can hear the col­lect­ive groans from here.  

It was the her­it­age and char­ac­ter of the build­ing which made it such a pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tion for Wel­ling­to­ni­ans and out-of-town­ers alike. As a Lyall Bay res­id­ent it’s been obvi­ous how des­ol­ate the Bay has become since the fire. 

Let the City Coun­cil know what you think via the poll right now.

In the meantime.…you can get your Maranui fix with their world-fam­ous salads, avail­able now from Moore Wilson’s Fresh. Appar­ently the pun­nets are big enough for two. 

Cold com­fort though. 

Vanguard Films – 30 Years

The Wel­ling­tonista’s Font of all Film Know­ledge Dan Slev­in has been get­ting excited about this one.

For the next fort­night the Film Archive is show­ing a ret­ro­spect­ive of the work of Wel­ling­ton-based inde­pend­ent film mak­ing col­lect­ive Van­guard Films.

Screen­ing at the Archive’s cinema on the corner of Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts, are a range of excep­tion­al doc­u­ment­ar­ies and dra­mas, with equip­ment and gear used by the film makers over the years, also on dis­play. There’s even a Bolex cam­era saved from detec­tion by the French Mil­it­ary at Mur­uroa Atoll in 1973. Hid­den in a bar­rel of oranges (the film stock in a sack of flour) a decoy cam­era was con­fis­cated, but one Bolex remained in Van­guard mem­ber Alister Barry­’s pos­ses­sion which he used to shoot foot­age of the Mur­uroa test site.    

Don’t miss Rus­sell Camp­bell and Alister Barry on Sunday with Chris Laid­law this week­end at 9:30am (appro­pri­ately just after Medi­awatch). And come in to the Film Archive to find out more about the col­lect­ive’s cease­less polit­ic­al and social act­iv­ism over the last 30 years. 

Soup & A Seat

Although Wel­ling­ton’s been turn­ing on some stun­ning days recently, win­ter­’s still offi­cially here for a little while longer…

To warm your wee souls, espe­cially for those suf­fer­ing from Film Fest­iv­al with­draw­al, the Film Archive (corner of Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts) has come up with a great Soup & A Seat concept.

It’s cinema con­densed to fit into your hour-long lunch­break. Each screen­ing starts at 12:15pm on Fri­days until 18 Septem­ber.

And you get a film screen­ing, includ­ing a hil­ari­ous range of docos, short films, even a Flight of the Conchords epis­ode, and a cup of homemade soup FOR EIGHT BUCKS! 

What a beauty. First screen­ing today at 12:15pm is the plucky 1975 doco Lost in the Garden of the World, which fea­tures, among oth­ers, Wern­er Herzog, Mar­tin Scorsese and Dustin Hoff­man, in fine 70s form.