Wellywood Woman

As you know, globally, women make far fewer films than men do. And those that we do make often have inadequate marketing budgets and are not well distributed, so often our potential audiences don’t hear about them. This means – as you also know – that it’s very very easy for women directors to be isolated from one another and for traditions of women’s filmmaking to remain partial and fragmented. This is how renowned British director Andrea Arnold described her experience, a few years back– I always notice how few [films by women] there are at film festivals. I went to Créteil International Women’s Film Festival in France with Wasp [for which she won an Academy Award] in 2004, stayed on for a few days and watched all these films by women. I spent the whole time crying because there were so many films that had so much resonance for me, being female. It actually made me realise how male-dominated the film industry is in terms of perspective. If you think about a film being a very...

Anoushka Klaus (photo: Sacha Stejko) I'm fascinated by actors and how they shift into other roles in filmmaking, especially writing. Anoushka Klaus is a recent find. She's appeared in Shortland Street and Nothing Trivial , in lots of theatre (including Girl In Tan Boots , F*ck Love , Golden Boys and The Sex Show ) and in three features, including Bloodlines , written by Donna Malane and Paula Boock (Best Script NZWG awards 2010) and directed by Peter Burger. Anoushka produced her latest feature, Jake , a sci-fi movie just out in New Zealand. Jake will be playing at the Paramount in Wellington from 11 July, when there'll be a Q & A session hosted by Jonathan King. It's had great reviews– 'Imaginative and endlessly witty.' – Sarah Watt Sunday Star Times 'The smartest bit of low-fi high-IQ science fiction New Zealand has produced.' – David Larsen Listener 'An entertaining and insightful slice of Twilight Zone-ish fun.' Dominic Co...

In an hour the first of three ninety-minute episodes of Gaylene Preston's Hope and Wire  will debut on New Zealand television.  When I saw half of tonight's episode, a while back, I liked how it seemed to bring ALL of Gaylene's skills and experience together in one space in an interesting example of media convergence. Gaylene as a veteran writer/director/producer. Gaylene as doco maker and oral historian. Gaylene as creator of screen fiction. (And Gaylene as enthusiastic community member. As highly politicised community member.) If you're not familiar with her work, think of Gaylene as a kind of New Zealand Charles Dickens ( Oliver Twist , Bleak House, Hard Times ). Or Alison Bechdel ( Dykes To Watch Out For , Fun Home, Are You My Mother? ). Or our very own Callie Khouri ( Thelma & Louis e, Nashville ). I think Hope and Wire may be the work she will be most remembered for. The run-up to the screening has been quite a trip for Gaylene; she's neede...

Anna Serner I love Le Deuxième Regard , the French network for cinema professionals that aims to challenge ideas about about the place of women in cinema. It's the group (remember?) that made history with the Charte Pour l’Égalité Entre Les Femmes et Les Hommes Dans Le Secteur Du Cinéma , the Charte de l’Égalité for short. This year, it continued its good work within a strong collaborative publishing programme programme from Cannes. Le Deuxième Regard also produces an excellent monthly newsletter. This month's newsletter features an interview with Anna Serner , director of the Swedish Film Institute , that legendary state funding body where where gender equity policies are more developed than anywhere else in the world – it's a lighthouse for every woman filmmaker in a country which has a state film fund (it also keeps track of gender statistics in some other countries ) and maybe a lighthouse for all the other film funds, too. And the results of its polici...