speaking of film - one of the first nz films i saw was Lee Tamahori's
"once were warriors" -a look at a contemporary Maori family in urban New
Zealand, replete with domestic violence, amazing intensity, intimacy , and
hope.. . another was "heavenly creatures" the true story about the two
white teenage girls who killed one of their mothers with a brick. .. both
great insightful movies.. how were they received locally ?
in fact, now i think about it your film industry has produced lots of quirky
and fabulous movies... but i guess "lord of the rings" is the thing which
has bought spectacular international attention.. and i assume will now mean
that us film companies will want to shoot lots of stuff in nz using the
high quality but relatively cheap labour and facilities, just as they do
in Australia.
This i think has helped killed off the smaller great films from our
Australian film industry. i haven't seen much at all emerge locally since
big budgets like matrix, Moulin rouge etc stared being made here. (film
people please show me i am wrong!) .there have been lots of great short
shorts, but relatively few features. so that stated goal of art
practices.. ie visibility and "making it on a world stage" which im sure we
all hear proudly proclaimed in dreary speeches at numerous launches, seems
rather counter productive as the result seem to be smothering rather than
liberating.
speaking as an Australian i think there is a very great advantage to being
a relatively small and peripherally positioned blended culture. i see this
in terms of freedom from either the weight of European, Indian or eastern
art history and philosophy, or the mainstream expectations of the US global
culture machine; and in terms of the innovation and creative solutions
which can arise in an off centred space... this freedom humility and
perspective gained form not thinking one is the centre of universal culture
makes for great art practices, in whatever form they manifest.
Melinda