Wellywood Woman

Filmmaker Kate Kaminski founded the now-legendary Bluestocking Series , of films with complex female protagonists that pass the Bechdel Test.  Her ideas in this piece are American-oriented, but they inspire me to consider similar stories set in New Zealand. Maybe they'll inspire you too, wherever you are? by Kate Kaminski   Yesterday I was asked by  @Winstonwrites   on Twitter “What female-driven films would you like to see in 2015?”  Because discovering films driven by complex female protagonists are a personal obsession, I knew immediately if I tackled this question, it would take much more than 140 characters so here we are. But I still had to narrow the topic down. As somebody who sees stories wherever she looks, let’s just say, I have enough story/novel/film ideas scribbled on bits of paper to fill several notebooks. I also run a women’s film festival called  Bluestocking Film Series  and this year, one of our short film categori...

Steven Joyce (Minister of Many Things), Jane Campion, Maggie Barry (Minister for Arts & Culture), James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Jon Landau New Zealand has a heavyweight Screen Advisory Board, appointed by the government just over a year ago: Jane Campion, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, James Cameron, Jon Landau, Andrew Adamson. The board was appointed to help the New Zealand screen sector create the skills and connections to be able to generate their own intellectual property, compete internationally, attract overseas finance and to assist the New Zealand Film Commission, Film New Zealand, and the New Zealand screen sector to market and promote the New Zealand screen industry overseas. A huge ask. But something these imaginative, generous and enterprising board members can deliver on. Last September, Dave Gibson, CEO of the New Zealand Film Commission, announced that the board members would each follow particular interests – Sir Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have identified ...

A beautiful moment in herstory. Kathryn Bigelow and Ava DuVernay converse after a showing of Selma . Hoping someone recorded it.  Half-way through some longish posts. But there are some thoughts I can't resolve. And it's mid-summer here so I'm also gardening and watching the bees (see Bee-Loved blog at right), hoping that the physical work will help me articulate what I think and feel. Sending you every good wish for a beautiful 2015. And warm thanks for being there for me to write to and for your responses, which I always love to bits. I may be gone for a while.

Yes, champions can come from anywhere. And New Zealander Niki Caro's a champ, director of McFarland USA . But she's the only woman director on the  Disney list for 2015 , which includes Pixar films. Furthermore, there's only one film on the list with a female protagonist, Pixar's Inside Out , an animation 'told from the perspective of the emotions inside the mind of a girl' and written and directed by men. This is no good for those of us who enjoy films by and about women and girls. But on this first day of 2015 – happy new year to all! – I'm delighted to celebrate a new film by Niki Caro, her first since A Heavenly Vintage (2009). McFarland USA is based on a true story about Jim White, a teacher (played by Kevin Costner) who noticed that young Latino farm workers ran great distances each day just to get from their exhausting jobs to school and back home. He creates a cross-country team and transforms the team into a state cham...

It's always exciting when a New Zealand woman-directed feature comes out. There's been a big gap between Dana Rotberg's White Lies/Tuakiri Huna , in early 2013, and Michelle Joy Lloyd's Sunday ,   which premiered last weekend. In what's believed to be a world first, in a carefully designed multiplatform release by Dustin Clare and Michelle as distributors (Fighting Noise),  Sunday opened simultaneously across more than twenty New Zealand cinemas, on television and the internet, on DVD and on airlines. Until now, Michelle was best known as producer of the internationally acclaimed Open Source film project Stray Cinema , which she founded in 2006 while living in Wellington. She produced and directed the first round of Stray Cinema film footage shot in London and screened at the first Stray Cinema screening event in London, 2007. Starring Dustin Clare and Camille Keenan, two award-winning Australasian actors, Sunday 's a relationship drama in the v...

I feel very proud that a New Zealand film, Kimbap , written and produced by Sapna Samant and directed by Alex Kyo Won Lee, won Best in Show and the Audience Choice Award for the best film by a male director at the Bluestocking Film Series this year and then travelled with the Bluestocking selection to the LadyBug Festival  in Sweden. This all feels special, because Bluestocking is the influential showcase for provocative, well-produced short fictional films featuring complex female protagonists – and the only film event in the world to require female protagonists. Submissions must also pass the Bechdel Test and Bluestocking is the first United States film event to receive Sweden’s A-Rating, which informs consumers that films pass the test. Best in Show judge, Thuc Doan Nguyen from The Bitch Pack , which advocates better representation of women ‘on the page’, said this about Kimbap – I chose the film because of the excellent acting, the relationship between mother an...

So Mockingjay had a big opening.  And here's @licoricehazel's immediate response– That' s all terrific. And as a New Zealander, I'm especially proud and delighted because 'our' Lorde curated the music. And wrote and performed some of it too. But I'm also remembering that men wrote almost all the Hunger Games scripts and directed all of the films. And I'm reflecting on that depressing data on women who make films and about the (mis)representation of women and girls in films. It continues to pour out. A storm. A flood. A tsunami. It's almost overwhelming. In September, the  European Audiovisual Observatory   released  Female Directors in European Films: State of Play and Evolution Between 2003 and 2012   –  the first substantial study to measure the director 'gender divide' at pan-European level. Since then I've been thinking about the various recent reports and their interrelationships, in an attempt to understand wh...

Jacqueline Kalimunda Jacqueline Kalimunda's Single Rwandan Seeks Serious Relationship asks ‘How do people love after genocide?’ It uses new technologies to explore the rebirth of love in a society that’s coming out of conflict and will introduce us to Rwanda’s new generation, using the internet to find love and enhance resilience. In three languages –  Kinyarwanda (Rwanda's official language) English and French – it's the first participatory film on love in Rwanda. I found  Single Rwandan' s crowdfunding campaign  on Twitter. And then watched Jacqueline's pitch clip and some clips she’s shared from the project (below). Jacqueline and the clips enchanted me, made me think and feel deeply. As an exploration of the 'rebirth of love in a society that’s coming out of conflict’, Single Rwandan is extraordinary, I believe, something profoundly important for all of us. In the English-speaking world, we’re most familiar with Rwanda through films made by othe...

Emma Rozanski, writer/director Papagajka I’m convinced that it’s essential to follow crowdfunding campaigns to learn what’s new and exciting about women in film, that women-directed and crowdfunded films are the most likely to change the gender imbalances, not films that women direct for Hollywood, with its profound ambivalence (at best!) towards women who make films and towards women and girls in films. Crowdfunded and women-directed films are where we’re most likely to experience complex women and girls and exciting stories about them. That's also where we'll be challenged and engaged by experimental work that makes us think and feel, I reckon. For me, it's easiest to access crowdfunding campaigns on Twitter. That’s where I first heard of Afia Nathaniel, whose Dukhtar ( Daughter ) premiered at Toronto this year, because she created such a beautiful campaign. I first heard and loved Ana Lily Amapour’s distinctive voice when she tweeted about A Girl Walks Home Alon...

All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Detail. A while back, in Courtenay Place Wellington, All the Cunning Stunts   installed a series of frames that made me smile. Juxtaposed with the Reading Cinemas complex, it provided me with a short film experience as I walked by, pausing often. All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Detail. I love it that at home we can now watch films at our own pace, pause on individual images, replay sequences. It's like turning the pages of a book. And at the  All The Cunning Stunts installation,   instead of clicking on my computer I 'walked' what felt like an experimental film.   With drama.   Read text that felt like poems. Reflected on the ideas. Delighted in this elegant manifestation of media convergence, complete with reference to the Topp Twins (remember The   Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls ?) All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Installation view. So imagine my delight when Pip Adam suggested th...