Author: Anna

“Experimental filmic punk experience”

Yowza – what on earth could that be I hear you won­der­ing.…. I’m a little unsure myself but this week/end from 11–13 June the Film Archive cinema (corner of Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts) is going to be explod­ing with the best of exper­i­ment­al film from Aus­tralia. 

Three of the lead­ing lights of the genre –  Sally Gold­ing, Joel Stern and Dirk de Bruyn – have been brought over with help from the Aus­trali­an High Com­mis­sion to present three nights of mind-blow­ing enter­tain­ment.

Each night prom­ises to be some­thing a little dif­fer­ent, kick­ing off with the his­tor­ic­al then the god­fath­er of Aus­trali­an exper­i­ment­al film, fol­lowed up a riot­ous con­clu­sion of hand­made and hand pro­cessed film, feed­back sys­tems, incon­gru­ous foley noise, sprock­ets and flick­er, trum­pets and strings, spe­cially pre­pared screens and ali­en­ated nar­ra­tion.

You’d be crazy to miss this cal­ibre of per­form­ance in a live set­ting. As NZFA Pro­ject Developer Mark Wil­li­ams says…

Calling all Neil Young fans!

Don’t miss this 35mm screen­ing of the bril­liant Rust Nev­er Sleeps (USA, exempt, 103 mins) this Sat­urday night at the Film Archive.  Tick­ets are $8 ($6 con­ces­sion) and this fea­ture length doc­u­ment­ary could sell out so get your tick­ets now.

The God­fath­er of Grunge is in essen­tial (read: grungy) form on this acclaimed live video, widely con­sidered to be the best record of Neil Young­’s spec­tac­u­lar con­cert pres­ence. Filmed in 1978, Young and his back­ing band, Crazy Horse, rip through six­teen of his best songs, includ­ing Like A Hur­ricane, Cin­na­mon Girl, and the mod­ern clas­sic, After the Goldrush.

Rust Nev­er Sleeps is one of those rare con­cert films that renews one’s faith in rock and roll. Tell your Dad.

Create your own Video Game!!!!

Put simply, Wel­ling­ton artist Douglas Bag­nall is an artsy com­puter-nerd geni­us (hope­fully he won’t mind me say­ing so).

Tomor­row eve, Wed­nes­day 15 April at 5:30pm the Film Archive’s mediagal­lery is unveil­ing his inter­act­ive pro­ject:

A MACHINE THAT TRANSFORMS CRAYON PICTURES INTO UNIQUE VIDEO GAMES THAT YOU CAN PLAY! 

I kid you not. Take your kids dur­ing the school hols, take your Nana. The exhib­i­tion is free and runs until May 16. 

Take who­ever, and most import­antly, take yourselves for a drink on Wed­nes­day eve! 

Film Archive, corner of Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts

Shhhh.…some secrets

No, this isn’t a fel­low Wel­ling­tonista help­ing anoth­er out after a hard Fri­day night on Cour­tenay Place, it’s a pic of the New Zea­l­and Med­ic­al Corps in 1917.

This Sat­urday at the Film Archive (7pm, entry by koha) Dr Chris Pugl­sey is present­ing a peek at some of the old­est sur­viv­ing films in the Archive, from 1910–1920 of the New Zea­l­and exper­i­ence dur­ing WWI. 

Dr Pugs­ley is a total hoot (teaches at Sandhurst – yes that’s right, the school of choice for Wills and Harry) and he’ll be joined by live piano accom­pani­ment. 

More after the jump

Calling all anime and manga fans!

Gam­bar­i­mashooooooo

The Film Archive is hav­ing a mini-Japan­ese Film Fest­iv­al this week with sup­port from the Japan­ese Found­a­tion. And all the films are screen­ing for FREE! 

If you’re any kind of anime fan you’ll be rush­ing to see:

1979 anime clas­sic – Lupin the III – The Castle of Cagliostro (Thurs 19) and the bril­liant Death Note (Fri 20) based on the manga series of the same name.

On Wed­nes­day eve (that’s tomor­row) there’s also the hurt­ling mari­time action movie Umizaru 2 – Test of Trust which prom­ises a wild ride. 

All screen­ings start at 6:30pm and it’s on a first in basis. 

Urban isolation

Terry Urbahn has spent a lot of time in bars and hotels – just the kind of guy we love here at the Wel­ling­tonista.

He has an exhib­i­tion of selec­ted works from 1994–2008 on show at the Film Archive mediagal­lery until 9 April, with the open­ing tak­ing place tomor­row – Sat­urday 14 March at 5pm. This is a bit of a depar­ture for the gal­lery. A week­end open­ing!

Come along and start your Sat­urday night right with a tipple and some great art – pho­to­graphy, video work, diorama and sculp­ture – by one of Wel­ling­ton’s favour­ites. Every­one is wel­come to cel­eb­rate this launch. 

All of the work was made dur­ing Urbahn’s time liv­ing in Cap­it­al City (he cur­rently lives in Sydney) but it’s the first time it’s been shown here…

includ­ing the spec­tac­u­lar work The Sac­red Hart (pic­tured) which is on dis­play by spe­cial arrange­ment with Auck­land Fest­iv­al.

[Image cour­tesy of Gov­ett-Brew­ster Art Gal­lery, New Ply­mouth]

Hollywood That Was

This very happy look­ing young man is New Zeal­ander Ron Tonkins (pic­tured with Mar­garet Chap­man) who trav­elled to Hol­ly­wood in 1946 and worked as a pub­li­city pho­to­graph­er.

Inter­est­ing thing is, dur­ing his time in Hol­ly­wood he shot reels and reels of Super 8 film foot­age like any usu­al tour­ist. Com­pletely Bizarre thing is, he had unlim­ited access to the stars of the day and the major Hol­ly­wood lots (includ­ing Hopa­long Cas­sidy). All without a secur­ity guard in sight.

Come and watch this “back­stage” look at Hol­ly­wood, shot by a plucky Kiwi and nar­rated with his own recol­lec­tions, “Here’s Mar­lene Diet­rich and she’s ask­ing me, ‘What’s New Zea­l­and like Ron?’ ??!?!

I kid you not, this rare record of Kiwi ingenu­ity must be seen to be believed.

Screen­ing Thursday 12 and Fri­day 13 March, 7pm. FREE ADMISSSION at the Film Archive. 

Can’t make it to Womad?

Nev­er mind, on Wed­nes­day 11 March at 7:30pm the Film Archive is host­ing six Gyuto Monks who will per­form live chant­ing before a fun­draiser screen­ing of Murder in the Snow. On their way to Womad this week­end the monks will con­duct a Q&A ses­sion after­wards.

Happy Birthday to the little station that could

Well blow me down, the VBC is turn­ing two! Bravo! 

Not entirely sure how they’ve pulled it off but the radio sta­tion con­tin­ues to go from strength to strength (best listened to stream­ing at www.vbc.org.nz  And they’re throw­ing a whop­per party to coin­cide with VUW Ori­ent­a­tion 2009. 

See you at the Front Room TONIGHT (at 5 Hania St off Kent Tce) for the Dead C, So So Mod­ern, Rory Storm & The Invaders

All for a mere $15. Tick­ets on the door. 

CONGRATULATIONS guys! 

The Rainbow Reels

Come down to the Film Archive this eve for the last exhib­i­tion open­ing of the year.

Hot damn – it’s a good­ie! Tessa Laird, whose name you may recog­nise from her bril­liant art writ­ing over the years, has cur­ated an exhib­i­tion from the Film Archive’s Home Movie Col­lec­tion.

With such a wealth of mater­i­al (over 30,000 titles) she cre­ated an arbit­rary selec­tion pro­cess based on the col­ours of the rain­bow. The res­ult­ant Rain­bow Reels are fant­ast­ic. There’s every­one from Opo to Chair­man Mau.…

Plus, per­form­ing tonight by spe­cial request are Alpha­bet Bomber – a band of 13 year olds who must be seen to be believed. They’re influ­enced by the Cramps and sheesh – it’s going to be a party!

See you tonight!

Image from 1982 Sweet­waters Fest­iv­al from the Yel­low sec­tion.