The New Zealand Digital Film Festival

Not Coming to a Multiplex Near You

The New Zealand Digital Film Festival - Wellington & Auckland, December 2003

Loose, improvised voyeurism… heady, art-directed, cinematic vision… crackling, heart-felt politics. Since 1996, digital film-makers have been making their distinctive voices heard and this year, the medium has started to get the critical and popular attention it deserves.

Shooting on digital video enables film-makers to shoot on a cheap format using a semi-pro camera, edit on an affordable computer and – most importantly – make the films they really want to make.

Not Coming to a Multiplex Near You is a festival of the best digital films to come out of New Zealand in the past eight years. The programme – put together by Creative New Zealand’s Screen Innovation Production Fund administrator Chloe Laing – features documentary, drama, comedy and experimental films – and it has a different line-up each night. The festival is being produced by emerging film producer Mhairead Connor.

Says Connor: “These are all great films … and getting the chance to show them together is really exciting. These are the directors, writers and producers who will be the A-list New Zealand film-makers of the near future. Digital technology has allowed some remarkable talent to develop: film-makers can make what they want because they’ve got the gear and, therefore, the time to make things their way, and make them well.”

People can catch this year’s bumper crop of digital feature films, including Florian Habicht’s Woodenhead and Gregory King’s Christmas; as well as older films such as The Cloud Forest by David Eggleton and Ranitar Charitkul and Hei Tiki by Whetu Fala.

This is a timely event. Not Coming to a Multiplex Near You opens on December 1 in Wellington – the night of the world premiere of The Return of the King – and in Auckland on December 9 – the night after the New Zealand Film Awards. The festival offers people the chance to see the difference that digital technology is making at the other end of the film-making spectrum. Where would you rather be?

NOT COMING TO A MULTIPLEX NEAR YOU is supported by Creative New Zealand, Creative Communities, SONY and The New Zealand Film Commission.

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