The Film Centre / Te Anakura Whitiāhua
The Film Centre, New Zealand’s museum of the moving image,
closed in April 2002.
Since beginning in August 1995, the Film Centre's events programme
has focussed on over a century of film-going and creative film,
television and video production in New Zealand. The most recent
exhibitions and screenings are explored below.
SoundTracks 4
Friday, 29 August
Electronic artist Rosy Parlane, guitarist Greg Malcolm, electro-acoustic
composer Lissa Meridan and rock musician Rebekah Coogan each perform
15-20 minute sets.
Saturday, 30 August
Percussion group Rotaction present a 45-minute show featuring their
self-devised instruments. They will be working in conjunction with
VJ and artist Eugene Hanson. Also being presented on this night
is Fetus Reproductions, an installation devised from the music and
images of 1980’s electronic group Fetus Productions.
Read more
page top The Celluloid Dance
September 2003
In association with Dance Aotearoa New Zealand, the Film Archive
screened two Hollywood musicals featuring the choreography of the
great Busby Berkeley: Gold Diggers of 1933 and Dames.
The screenings were part of Dance Your Socks Off, Wellington's annual
dance festival.
read more
page top Best of Transmediale.03
6.30pm, June 9 2003
 A
selection of video art from Transmediale.03, one of the most successful
international festivals of electronic media art and media culture
in Europe, screens at Massey University's School of Fine Arts.
Read more
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Brief Encounters: Cinema Europe 2003
May 8 - 26, 2003
Cinema Europe is a festival of European short films in New Zealand
that started five years ago and going from one success to another
has become an established feature on New Zealand’s very lively
arts and film scene. This year’s festival will have screenings
in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch.
Read more
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Movies by Starlight
12 & 19 February, 2003
Free outdoor screenings of Gaylene Preston’s feature films
Mr Wrong and Ruby and Rata.
The Dell
Wellington Botanical Gardens
Free Admission
Read more
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Hybrid Forms
3 - 24 November, 2002
 Three
screenings examining new trends in the documentary film. Presented
in association with Goethe Institut Inter Nationes and introduced
by Dr Russell Campbell.
Read screening programme
Young Turks / Getürkt
4 - 17 November, 2002
In the last ten years German cinema has been enriched by the distinctive
voice of a growing number of young directors of Turkish origin.
Many of the directors share an ambivalence towards their new home.
Young Turks presents a selection of recent feature and
short films and documentary work that explore the challenges of
living in and between two cultures.
Read screening programme
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The Celluloid Dance
9 - 23 September, 2002
Screenings of dance-related films, presented by the Film Archive
and DANZ. In association with Dance Your Socks Off 2002, Wellington
City Council and Recreation Wellington
Read screening programme
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Soundtracks 3: A Night of Live Music & VJ-ing
14 September, 2002
Read more
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A Perfect Passion: the Cinema of John O'Shea
18 August - 9 September, 2002
 "I
have a perfect passion for the island where I was born," Katherine
Mansfield wrote from a sanatorium in France and to us it perfectly
sums up both John O'Shea’s career and his motivation for making
films in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Read screening programme
Read programme as PDF
(384k)
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Brief Encounters - Cinema Europe 2002
May 2002
Cinema Europe is a festival of European short films in New Zealand
that started four years ago and going from one success to another
has become an established feature on New Zealand’s very lively
arts and film scene. This year’s festival will have screenings
in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch and will focus on young
talented cinematographers from Europe whose films represent a promise
for the future of the Seventh Art in Europe.
Read screening programme.
page top
The Ring
23 November 2001 — February 2002
In 1999, award winning animators, Alan Platt and Max Stewart, were
commissioned by Channel 4 (UK) to produce a 30 minute animated version
of Wagner’s, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The aim of the
film was not only to introduce young people to a world of music
they might otherwise feel unable to enter, but, by abandoning the
vocals, show how clearly and excitingly music can tell a story.
For the filmmakers, self-confessed “Wagnerites”, this
approach presented no problems. For them, music is the key to The
Ring’s great magic and allure and by dropping the voice
parts and letting the orchestra and the pictures tell the story
the saga could be effectively condensed to only half an hour. And
The Ring is perfectly suited to puppet animation. What
better way to recreate a world of gods and heroes, giants and dwarves,
dragons and flying horses!
Stewart and Blenheim-born Platt returned to New Zealand from London
to make the film, with music performed by the Auckland Philharmonia,
recorded by Concert FM in the Auckland Town Hall.
The Ring exhibition features the original drawings and
sketches, sets and puppets used in the production and continuous
screenings of the completed film in the TV Lounge.
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::contagion::
Australian New Media Art @ the Centenary of Federation, 2001
12 September to 14 November, 2001
With a total of 26 works created for video, 2D, CD-ROM, and the
web, ::contagion:: is one of the most exciting exhibitions of contemporary
Australian new media art ever assembled in New Zealand.
Commissioned by the New Zealand Film Archive in the centenary year
of Australia’s Federation, the exhibition has been curated
by Linda Wallace. The exhibition features several well known Australian
artists including Tracey Moffat, (due to have a show at the City
Gallery later this year), Josephine Starrs, Zina Kaye and Melinda
Rackham. Curator Linda Wallace describes the works in ::contagion::
as ‘raw, but energetic...with a do it yourself edge’ and
‘off the map’ of mainstream media.
The works in ::contagion:: embrace a variety of themes. Michael
Schiavello’s What Kind of Country reworks the Australian
Government’s centenary TV campaign to suggest some uncomfortable
truths about Aboriginal history. Tracey Moffat and Gary Hillberg’s
Artist offers an amusing take on the apparent mystery of
art and the artist. Melinda Rackham’s Praeternatural
is a CD-ROM based on themes of human genetic modification. Other
works tackle a more abstract line of investigation into digital
media and video art, rounding out a varied and comprehensive overview
of Australia’s new media community in 2001.
Such is the scale of ::contagion::, the exhibition will reach
beyond the Film Centre’s exhibition space to The Film Archive’s
website which includes eight webworks as part of the show. The Archive’s
library will also play host for two CD-ROM’s.
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1951 - Lockout, Strikes, Confrontation
March - May 2001
1951 - Lockout, Strikes, Confrontation marks the 50th anniversary
of the 1951 Waterfront Lockout and supporting strikes.
The saga of 1951 is one of the longest and most bitter industrial
disputes in New Zealand's history. Around 20, 000 workers were either
locked out or on strike in support of watersiders claims for an
equal pay rise.
Government legislation prevented striking workers from receiving
financial assistance, donations of food, or presenting their case
in any public forum, including the press.
The exhibition features fierce anti-union newspaper coverage, including
cartoons, photos, and editorial coverage. Moving image material
includes illegally taken footage of striking workers, documentary
excerpts from New Zealand film makers Merita Mita, Vanguard Films
and Dean Parker as well as archival footage profiling cold-war New
Zealand.
“It is doubtful whether such drastic curtailment of the right
of free speech has been enforced in any country outside of fascist
nations”
- NZ Standard 1951
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