Author: Anna

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

In an age of whizz bang graph­ics and fancy cam­era tech­niques, it’s a real treat to be able to watch a silent film with speech titles such as: “Where Mary was con­cerned Sammy, the hired hand, had the soul and ardour of a fifth cen­tury poet” ??WTF!? and all with live piano accom­pani­ment.

On Wed­nes­day 20 August, 7pm The Bush Cinder­ella is screen­ing, a present­a­tion by the Friends of the Film Archive, to cel­eb­rate the 80th anniversary of this Rud­all Hay­ward film.

Star­ring Miss New Zea­l­and Dale Aus­tin, “who com­bines Hol­ly­wood exper­i­ence and tech­nique with a fault­less pho­to­gen­ic face.” – The Sun, 1928.

No New Zeal­ander Should Miss It! A Tri­umph of Domin­ion Enter­prise, Filled with the Famil­i­ar Sen­ti­ments, the Typ­ic­al Humour, and the Glor­i­ous Scenery of God’s Own Coun­try.
Tick­ets $8 / $ 6

As promised

Here’s some info about This is Exper­i­ment­al – also kick­ing off tomor­row eve.….

A fest­iv­al of exper­i­ment­al film and film makers (talk about niche‑y) If you know someone who’s into avant-garde film, please do let them know.

High­lights include a screen­ing and work­shop by Guy Sher­win, one of the pre-emin­ent Brit­ish film artists of the last 40 years; Free Rad­ic­al: The films of Len Lye, a pro­gramme which screened to over­whelmed audi­ences in the USA last year; and a col­lec­tion of 1980s Super 8 Movies from Canada, NZ and USA presen­ted by film maker Mar­tin Rumsby.

Image: Len Lye, Stills Col­lec­tion; New Zea­l­and Film Archive

Plus The Michael Nich­olson Stu­dio Visu­al Music Pro­ject Stage 3: Ops 1–4 video install­a­tion – see below.…

Video synthesizer

Open­ing this Thursday at the Film Archive at 5:30pm, an exhib­i­tion by 92-year old Wel­ling­ton paint­er, sculptor, artist Michael Nich­olson.

If that’s not impress­ive enough this work, The Michael Nich­olson Visu­al Music Pro­ject: Stage 3. Op.s 1–4, was ori­gin­ally cre­ated on a “Scan­im­ate” machine in Aus­tralia in the 1980s; the same machine that early Star Wars, Ses­ame St and The Elec­tric Com­pany anim­a­tions were made on. Nich­olson worked with the Film Archive to restore the ori­gin­al U‑matic tapes and edited them togeth­er as ‘Visu­al Music’ with the assist­ance of edit­or Diane McAl­len.

Michael Nich­olson first came to New Zea­l­and in the 1950s to work at the Elam School of Fine Art. His latest work is inspired by the abstract expres­sion­ist paint­ings of Wassily Kand­in­sky. It’s hyp­not­ic, fas­cin­at­ingly beau­ti­ful and on dis­play for the next month in the Pelor­us Trust mediagal­lery.

This event launches an Exper­i­ment­al Film Fest­iv­al too but more about that soon!

Still images: Screen grabs from The Michael Nich­olson Visu­al Music Pro­ject: Stage 3. Op.s 1–4

Rare treat for Wellington

I’m com­pletely gobsmacked. Just got a little sneak live pre­view of the one and only CW Stone­k­ing (Myspace) who plays the Mighty Mighty tonight.

I advise you to fight your way to the door. Wel­ling­ton’s own Slim Chants will be kick­ing things off from 9pm and Palmy’s how­ing wolf man Boss Christ will take things into the night.….. but this CW Stone­k­ing.

I think I’m in love.

Holy Mac Truck

Check out the Party of the Uni­verse the Mighty is put­ting on for Wel­ling­ton NEXT WEEK!!!!!

(click image to see lar­ger ver­sion of the poster)

For those of you who don’t know CW Stone­k­ing – you should. He’s nev­er played NZ before and he’s some­thing. Check him out on myspace.

And for the oth­er nights, the finest in NZ bands from around the coun­try cov­er­ing a pretty diverse range of genres. There’s the Amer­ic­ana night kick­ing things off, extreme neon for the Heavy Pet­ting elec­tro night, fol­lowed by a total mash up of rocka­billy and elec­tron­ics from Bang Bang Eche, and then a Wild Trash extra­vag­anza of Wel­ling­ton’s own to top things off.

There’ll be pole dan­cers, limbo com­pet­i­tions, a vodka slide and so much more. Chose your night. Bring your friends and come and party at the Castle that Cares!

Something smells like fish

For those of you who’ve nev­er heard of Nanook, Thursday night’s screen­ing at the Film Archive is unmiss­able.

Widely con­sidered the first fea­ture length doc­u­ment­ary ever made (shot in 1922) it’s an excep­tion­al account of Inu­it life on the ice.

Using tra­di­tion­al meth­ods (includ­ing killing large fish by bit­ing the back of their heads/necks? whatever you call that bit at the top) and hanging out with his “wives” in the harshest of climes, this snap­shot of Nanook’s life is even more poignant as he died two years later, lost in a snow storm.

The film later went on to be dis­cred­ited for “set­ting-up” tra­di­tion­al hunt­ing meth­ods, rais­ing inter­est­ing ques­tions which fit per­fectly with the cur­rent mediagal­lery exhib­i­tion by Wel­ling­ton artist Sarah Jane Par­ton.

She’ll be per­form­ing a response to the film live with the music­al back up of Henderson/Beban/Crewdson

THIS THURSDAY, 7PM, AT THE FILM ARCHIVE
TICKETS $8 / $6

Film Archive events cal­en­dar

At the Castle that Cares

It’s a grand thing to be in Wel­ling­ton for the long week­end cos SPAM INC is bring­ing the best of the coun­try’s dirti­est rock and roll to Cap­it­al City tomor­row night.

The Hor­ies (AK), Boss Christ (Palmy) and The Grand Saloon (Banks Pen­in­sula) all at the Mighty for a mea­gre five bucks.

[insert howl­ing wolf noises here]

The World of Interiors

Open­ing tonight at the Film Archive (this one well worth a look) is artist Nova Paul’s exper­i­ment­a­tion with the bright bold world of Tech­nicol­or.

Part trippy, wan­der­ing col­ourscape, part highly tech­nic­al pro­cess, film geeks and art lov­ers will drool over this one…while many should remem­ber her work from last year’s Pro­spect show at the City Gal­lery.

Plus she’s present­ing a screen­ing of some of her works along­side Tech­nicol­or gems from the Archive’s vault on Thursday 5 June – includ­ing the fas­cin­at­ing Tuber­cu­los­is: How it spreads: How to pre­vent it (1954, Mor­row Pro­duc­tions, NZ)

Open­ing tonight 5:30pm at the Film Archive. Exhib­i­tion runs til Sat­urday 21 June.

And something else tonight worth a mention

The Cos­bys are Auck­land’s undis­puted kings of North­ern Soul – a hyper­charged R&B revue thun­der­ing through uptown, down­town, deep soul, dance and bal­lad sounds, and most import­antly, doing it with impec­cable style.

Appar­ently dis­sat­is­fied with the groove­less, under­sexed state of mod­ern rock­’n’roll, The Cos­bys found the answer by smash­ing togeth­er four-on-the-floor Motown rhythms with a two-fis­ted Stax-style horn sec­tion and a sing­er – “Papa” Crawdaddy – who is so damn good he made James Brown just give up and die.

So cut loose, ladies and gen­tle­men – shake those hips, jive with the Hot Cosby Horns, be touched by “Papa”. Do the jerk, watch them work, do the Mashed Potato, do the Alligator. And do it on Cosby Street, or even bet­ter – tonight (Fri­day 18th April) at Mighty Mighty.

10pm – $5 – good times

Web­site here

Opening tonight – all welcome

A swag of Wel­ling­ton artists have pro­duced video art for The Artists Film Fest­iv­al, open­ing tonight at 5:30pm at the Film Archive (cnr Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Sts).

Cur­ated by Wel­ling­ton-based cur­at­or (and Listen­er art crit­ic) Paula J Book­er, the show prom­ises an extreme mix of artworks.…28 video works in total, pos­sibly the largest video exhib­i­tion ever under­taken in NZ.

High­lights include someone singing to Janis Joplin until almost passing out, CHCH artist James Oram gen­er­at­ing elec­tri­city by bike to power his own ME sign.…it’s all pretty enter­tain­ing/shock­ing/­thought-pro­vok­ing stuff.

EXHIBITION DETAILS
The Artists Film Fest­iv­al
11 April – 17 May 2008

LIVE PERFORMANCE, Thursday 17 April, 7pm
The Twi­light Drone by Johannes Con­tag (of Cloud­boy fame) Tick­ets $8/6.

Con­tag explores the notion of the ambi­ent film with live accom­pani­ment to this film work shot in a snow-covered Aus­tria…