For those of you in Wellington, fowarded on behalf of Roger Horrocks:
FILM HISTORY SCREENINGS
I’d like to mention two programmes coming up at the Wellington Film
Festival relevant to those with an interest in film history. Both are
at the Film Archive (on the corner of Taranaki and Ghuznee streets).
The first is “Len Lye – Discoveries and Rarities.” This is a programme
of Lye films I have re-discovered or restored, with the help of the
Film Archive. It includes some animation films not previously screened
in New Zealand such as “Life’s Musical Minute” with jazz by Woody
Herman. Then, as a sample of Lye’s ‘day job’, there is a
1946 March of Time documentary that includes Albert Einstein, about
the discovery of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war.
Another novelty is a sequence of dancing girls in space that Lye
contributed to the feature film “Mad About Money.” The programme also
includes newly restored versions of several of Lye’s better-known hand-
made animation films, and a new 18-minute film about Lye that I have
directed called “Art that Moves” (with camerawork by Leon Narbey).
This programme will be screened twice - on Saturday 1st August, at 3
pm and at 5.15 pm.
The other programme is “Dance of the Instant” by Shirley Horrocks.
This is based on the discovery of 16mm film footage of New Zealand’s
first modern dance group which was active in Wellington 1945-1947. The
group was controversial and many years ahead of its time. It included
Rona Bailey (who had studied with dance innovator Martha Graham in New
York), Phillip and Olive Smithells, Czech refugee Edith Lennart, and
playwright Bruce Mason. This striking documentary (funded by Creative
NZ) draws on a range of footage of the period from the NZ Film
Archive, photographs by Brian Brake, plus lively interviews with a
number of surviving members of the group, and reconstructions of their
dances (by dance historian Marianne Schultz). It will be screened
three times – on Friday 31st July at 12.15 and at 1.30, and on Sunday
August 2 at 12 noon.
Shirley and I will be present at each session to introduce our films.
She will also be part of a panel of film-makers at 2pm on Saturday in
the Bergman Suite at the Paramount. The theme is New Zealand
documentary-making and the other panellists will be Florian Habicht,
John Reid, Costa Botes, Luit Bieringa and Geoff Murphy.
Roger Horrocks.
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