Wellywood Woman

Today's the day to celebrate poet laureate Cilla McQueen's Serial . I'm going to check it out at least once a week—I love how she entertains and inspires me with a few lines and an image! I'm hunting round the house for her wonderful  A WIND HARP  CD. Where is it? Then there's Heather McPherson, up in Auckland doing pavement poems today. 

I love the Kid in the Front Row's blog. And this week he suggested a Sequels, Remakes and Reboots blogathon. I'll add links to the other participants' posts as they come in.  "It's an open-ended assignment", the Kid wrote. "Your post can be serious, it can be funny, it can be apathetic, it can be argumentative, it can be in Spanish. You write whatever you want—whatever comes to mind--- what I hope is that we'll have an eclectic view of the modern day sequel, a variety of opinions on the fact that they keep remaking things." The Kid's the first man I know of who's blogged about the 'gender issue'. Here's part of what he wrote, a few months ago: There is a voice that is MISSING from the world of film. And it is the voice of women...There is a feeling of helplessness. That for this issue to be taken seriously, Spielberg needs to deal with it, or Julia Roberts needs to start a campaign; rather than us exploring the notion t...

There are so many strategies available to support women’s participation in feature filmmaking. I love them all. Some people record, analyse and write about the numbers, provide the evidence: Martha Lauzen, the Writers Guild of America West and some government funding agencies. Others analyse how women and girls are represented in film, and show where there are opportunities to develop new ideas: the Geena Davis Institute, academics. There are state funders who develop gender policies: the Swedish Film Institute, Scottish Film. Bloggers who talk about the issues with women writers and directors: Women & Hollywood, HerFilm are my faves. Journalists like Manohla Dargis sometimes provide sharp analysis.  Some women experiment with funding structures and new ways of distribution—the classy Afia Nathaniel and makers of webseries hold my attention at the moment. There are organizations with programmes that support women directors: AFI, Women in the Director’s Chair, filmdirectin...

Erica Duthie and I are making Development -the-movie as a performance piece, an extension of our individual public art practices. Based in Wellywood, we want to contribute to a future where New Zealand women write and direct 50% of all our feature films. One element of this is to talk and write about the NZFC’s investment in women, as the state film fund with a dismal record in funding women's features and investing in women filmmakers generally. Another is to test an alternative and  sustainable feature film-making structure based on Women Make Movies’ idea of a charitable umbrella for funding, and Sally Potter’s practice on The Gold Diggers of paying everyone the same daily rate. If this works for Development -the-movie, it will we hope also work for other women’s feature projects. So, as we work towards our $150,000 goal, we’re trying everything except the NZFC, every likely and unlikely source we can think of. Often this process means that we are the audience. When peo...