Postcard from MIFF

I’m writing this in my hotel room. I arrived today at lunchtime and got thrown into the fray with the three NZ directors attending the MIFF Accelerator Lab, Awanui Simich-Pene, Vea Mafile’o and Te Waiarangi Ratana, and about 40 Australian directors.

Vea and Te Waiarangi’s shorts ran in the first short programme that screened today. They held their own.

The Australians are also good short filmmakers and they addressed a diverse range of topics and themes, across a variety of genres. I’m looking forward to the second short programme tomorrow,

The wonderful thing about shorts is that they allow true creative expression, one of the things I will mention tomorrow in the panel I’m participating in titled ‘Thinking Long and Hard About Shorts’.

On the walk from the hotel to the cinema where we watched Justin Kerzel’s documentary Ellis Park—a beautifully made, at times very sad, but ultimately uplifting biopic about legendary Australian musician Warren Ellis—I was a little shocked to hear from one of the Australian directors that they don’t receive government support for the production of shorts.

The quality of the Australian shorts I saw was certainly good, so these short filmmakers here have found a way to get their films made. Melbourne City featured in a number of the credits. Good to see a city getting behind their filmmakers.

I shared a cab into the city with Jackie van Beek who while living in Australia made at least five self-funded shorts before she returned home to NZ and got her first NZFC support for a short, then went on to make her debut feature, Inland Road.

It can sometimes seem that we in New Zealand lean too hard on NZFC for support when there are other ways of going about it. The Low-budget filmmaking workshop we ran with directors Michael Duignan, Tom Levesque and Tom Sainsbury showcased how they got their feature films shot on their own bat. I know Michael at least however was able to get post-production support to finish his film from NZFC—the finishing grant NZFC offers is something the Guild would very much like to see continue.

In the brief time I’ve been here it does seem things are tightening up for domestic Australian production, but it is certainly still more buoyant than at home. They have commissioned shows from the streamers and their own networks, while international production is for the moment keeping crew busy, at least here in Melbourne, according to one of the Australian directors I talked to.

I’m sorry to be missing NZIFF but I’m at least getting to see a good number of films while I’m here at MIFF. Next is Australian director Charles Williams’ Inside.

Hope you are all catching some great NZ films at the festival.

Tui Ruwhiu

Executive Director

Last updated on 16 August 2024