Memory and Desire, New Zealand, 1998

Director/screenplay: Niki Caro
Production co: Frame Up Films
Producer: Owen Hughes
Based on a story of the same name by Peter Wells
Photography: Dion Beebe 

Editor: Margot Francis 

Production designer: Grant Major
Sound: Chris Burt
Music: Peter Scholes 

Wardrobe: Kirsty Cameron
Make-up: Denise Kum

With: Yuri Kinugawa (Sayo), Eugene Nomura (Keiji), Yoko Narahashi (Mrs Nakajima), Joel Tobeck (Nod), Shiori Terada (Hitomi), Tim Lee (Sergeant), Takeshi Ohbayashi (Sayo’s father), Midori Takei (Sayo’s stepmother)

Festivals: Cannes (Critics’ Week) 1998; NZ Film Festivals 1998

35mm, 89 minutes, R16–Contains sex scenes

On a honeymoon package tour Sayo and Keji are more concerned with the landscape of each other than the empty beauty of the New Zealand scenery. But despite their intense passion, frustration arises as Keiji cannot make love to his new wife. After his shocking death, Sayo must return to Tokyo, but finds no comfort in her mother in law's home. Directed by Niki Caro (North Country, Whale Rider)

Drawing on our collection, the NZ Film Archive is pleased to announce our partnership with the Museum of Wellington City and Sea as part of the 2012 Death and Diversity Exhibition 

From the comic Carry Me Back to the challenging documentary Last Western Heretic, The Film Archive has drawn on our collection to present fictional and non-fictional representations of the mortality of man. Special features include  Macario, the never-screened in NZ Mexican film, Sinead Donnelly introducing her three documentaries, and The Orator, the first Samoan feature length film.

Fear of death and dying, actual death and dying, and what happens to those who have died and those who are left behind will all provide potent dramatic filmic material (and the occasional laugh!)