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.

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.