The NZ Flim Festaliv begins in Wellington tomorrow, and Cal has been sorted enough to get us booked into some flims. Here’s what we’re up for:
Welcome to the Sticks – the most successful French film of all time, apparently. An odd chain of events leads a rural French community to feign being backward and provincial. I was ambivalent about this one when Cal ticked it, but I’ve been warming to the idea, and I haven’t seen anything from France in years.
The Hollow Men – Alister Barry’s film of Nicky Hager’s look inside the National Party election campaign in 2004. Sure to be fascinating.
My Winnipeg – Guy Maddin’s weird doco about his hometown. I’ve actually been to Winnipeg, so I’m looking forward to this one to give me a new perspective on the place.
Ben X – from Belgium, An autistic young man negotiates the online and real worlds with varying success, or something. Sounded intriguing, Oddly the fest has a fair few autism-related films this year.
Trouble Is My Business, a doco about a school in Auckland getting turned around by a new approach to education and discipline. I dig on education-themed stuff, always have. Should be neat.
So that’s the bookings. I might pick up another one or two on walk-ins, there are certainly others I’m interested in.
Yay for the Flim Festaliv!
Category: Wellington
Drinking Liberally: Nicky Hager
Went along to Drinking Liberally on Thursday night, a packed house (including a couple of MPs) for NZ’s great investigative journalist Nicky Hager. Cal and I were both pretty under the weather so we didn’t stick around afterwards, but it was good to hear him talk.
Hager talked for a while about how he is frustrated by people who say the public is apathetic about politics, saying his experience is that people everywhere, at all levels of society, are interested and have opinions that go beyond pure self-interest. He blames the political process for making people feel excluded and helpless. Crosby-Textor, the “evil agency” employed by National to help with their campaign, were paradigmatic examples of this. They are carefully structuring National’s campaign to shut down anything that is interesting, so people experience the substance of politics as boring and have to focus on personality. The strict insistence on repeating the same statements over and over is rendering the political conversation empty, and that is the cause of perceived public apathy
He spoke mostly about the National opposition and its many sins, because it was a liberal crowd, but made a point of Labour’s failures and wrongdoing as well – he identified Labour’s years of shutting down debate, and (most damningly) its failure to build up a credible liberal community in New Zealand. It held on to power too closely and as a result, now that the wind is coming out of its sails, there’s no support ready to come to its aid.
He made a bunch of other interesting points (noting how fundamentally right-wing NZ is was one of them that struck home to me), but reserved most of his ire for the media, whose reactive press-release driven mode of operation clearly drives him to distraction. While careful not to attack them too overtly (“I have to work in that world”, he said) it was clear that he places huge accountability on the news media for the sad state of political conversation here (and presumably overseas as well). Why, he asked, had no media representative asked John Key if he was employing Crosby Textor? It had been a major issue for his predecessor in the role – and yet not one Kiwi journalist fronted up to Key and asked him if he was taking a different course.
That is why Nicky Hager is so valuable. He’s a legend, in my book. Kudos.
(I’m going to see the movie of his revelatory book on the last National campaign, The Hollow Men, in the film fest. Should be fun. Really should read the book, seeing as I’ve seen Hager talk about it, seen the play of the book, and will shortly see the film of the book…)
Side note: it does puzzle me why the DomPost, among other papers, happily publish ridiculous letters to the editor like today’s asking for Hager to be prosecuted for being in possession of leaked emails. Surely the capital city newspaper doesn’t think reporting on leaked documents is a crime? Why, then, do they allow such attacks to get into print at all? It surprises me.
John Key and “Explaining Is Losing”
DomPost man in the Beehive Vernon Small: As National leader John Key is fond of saying: Explaining is losing.
I find myself forced to question this – does he really say that? Google sure don’t find any instances. Gerry Brownless said it in the house a year ago, but that’s about it. So does Vernon Small really testify that Key says this when off-mike? That’s a hell of a bean to throw, if so, because it comes from the arch-demon himself:
“Explaining is losing.” This is the only direct quote I’ve lifted from the book, because it is key, absolutely critical. If your guy has to explain anything – his policies, his past, anything – then your guy is playing a losing game. Voters in general don’t want to be burdened with policy details and candidates certainly don’t want to get mired in personal explanations. Just forget explaining anything — anything at all — and move on. It’ll work. You’ll be amazed.
– from a summary of ‘Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George Bush Presidential’
Speaking of election advice and strategy, Nicky Hager’s continued that unfamiliar “journalism” thing with a report on how John Key and the National core have enlisted extensive multi-year support from despised election dirty-tricks experts Crosby, Stills & Textor. As usual with Hager’s stuff, his story is then picked up and covered mostly in terms of “who does that Nicky Hager think he is” and “how is he getting all this information” rather than actually paying attention to what he’s dug up. But that’s the way things are done now, sad to say.
(Hager is a special guest at this Thursday’s Drinking Liberally in Wellington. I’m gonna be there.)
Walking Around Wellington
Saturday I decided I needed to reconnect with Wellington. For months now I’ve had very little contact with my beloved city; spending days hidden in an office on the hill, rushing home for food and sleep, occasionally passing through town for this or that specific purpose. Its not the best way to interact with Wellington, a city that rewards more considered immersion.
So I slung my bag on my back and strode off into the town. It was a gorgeous day, which was a bonus, and I couldn’t help smiling as I wandered about. So many small treats in this city, like the fascinating old houses throughout Newtown, and the way I can short-cut through the lovely (and semi-famous) Basin Reserve cricket ground, and the way the town belt tracks green alongside me all the way from Newtown to the waterfront.
I stopped off in the Spacething zine shop, chatted briefly to the lively crew there who were all enthusiasticly talking about bands they saw or will see or belong to. I diverted into Te Papa to see the art connected to the World Environment Day event Welly hosted a few weeks back, and liked most of it and was absolutely staggered by one piece by a Venezualan photographer. I trooped along the waterfront and curled around lower cuba, and there were plenty of people enjoying coffee or glasses of wine. I even treated myself to a chai latte and feijoa muffin at the library cafe, scribbling in my notebook and watching people pass by.
Basically I walked all over the city for about four hours, and then I walked back home. It was great. I think I needed to remind myself what it all was like.
(I walked back in a few hours later to go and see Incredible Hulk. Surprised myself by really enjoying it. Good wee film, seriously.)
(Also, my beloved Cal gave me the new edition of D&D as a gift. Thank you beloved Cal!)
Borkhardt Hates You Too (2008)
I posted this on my LJ last week, but forgot to crosspost to the audience here. This is the 48 Hour Film we made this year (and by we, I mean, mostly other people, I just did writing then went home and crashed):
I think it’s rather good, I do. I think it survives the transition to small screen with panache, and bears rewatching quite well too. The city finals are tomorrow night, we didn’t make the cut (hence you being able to watch) but two other films at our heat did. I hope we get some recognition for technical stuff – I think this film is incredible to look at and the tech crew deserve muchas kudos for it..
For more 48 Hour fun, check out
Temporal Affairs, featuring occasional commenter here Jon Ball, and with some other friends of the morgue in behind-camera roles; and…
[Fraser, where’s your film? I thought it was on your LJ but just checked and is not there… I know I’ve watched it… someone linky?]
Drinking Liberally 2
The second Drinking Liberally in Wellington happened last night. Michael Cullen, Finance Minister, came to talk on the back of his electoral-fighting budget – he spoke well about his background and the principles of social democracy, then took a bunch of questions which challenged him on his claims to being a Keynesian and asked about the Treaty resolution process, among other things. Before and after Cullen was mingling, and I was pleased to see a fair few faces there who were also at the one before, even though once again I couldn’t stick around much past 7pm.
It all felt a lot more sure of itself this time, it seemed that the mingling and conversation which was so hesitant at the first one was pretty engaged this time out. All as it should be – the concept is a perfect fit for a small capital city with a strong liberal base and plenty of bars… It was promising, and I’ll be along again, hopefully to get some solid chatter time in for a change.
MND: OneTrackMind gig Saturday
So, you get told you’ve got at most five years to live. What do you do?
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Welly crew will have seen on the cover of this week’s Capital Times a dude who’s skateboarding over 200K from Taihape to here. He’s part of the Ride For MND massive, and he’s heading down for the One Track Mind fundraising gig. Ride For MND was set up by Duncan, who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and decided he was going to do his best to raise money for MND research.
I’ve known Duncan since schooldays, and he’s really tight with my sister and her husband and with a bunch of other good friends of mine. So, Wellingtonians, this: please try and get along to the gig. It’s $10 on the door for a great night, and you are contributing to a really good cause.
Ride for MND in association with a lot of people, presents:
Barnaby Weir (Black Seeds)
Sleepy Demons
The Postures
Daniel Bohan – The Antihero
Newtown Street Justice
+ Munt FM & VBC DJs spinning the latest in aural awesomeness
$10 Doorsales only.
SATURDAY 7 JUNE 2008
BODEGA
If you can’t make it along, but want to contribute, there’s a donate page over on the Ride For MND site.
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So, then. This is what you do.
Things To Do In Dubtown
Wellingtonians! Two things of interest in ol’ Dubtown tonight:
Drinking Liberally – hang out with liberal folks and talk politics and whatever. Guest speaker tonight: Finance Minister Michael Cullen. 5.30 kickoff at Southern Cross, Cullen speaking 6.00 to 6.40.
Malty Media – this week with opening tyoons from guest DJs, DJ Scout and the Defenestrator, before Aquaboogie and Jet Jaguar resume the authoritas. 7 to 9 in the pm at Katipo.
I’m gonna get to both, I hope.
Postcard – Happy Ending
Remember that mysterious postcard? After nearly two decades at sea, it has been returned to the woman who wrote it.
Neat how the internet makes this sort of thing possible, huh?
(I didn’t meet Jennie, but I handed the postcard to someone who instantly recognised the tot in the photo and was quite blown away by the story. That was a neat moment.)
On Wednesday, briefly
Wednesday gave me much to post about but I didn’t post about it because Thursday was a dog of a day, by which I mean, it was very busy, in the way that dogs are busy, with their sniffy noses and waggedy tails and the bounding.
Briefly then:
I went to Drinking Liberally – the debut get-together of liberal-type people to drink and chat and network and so on. I found it to be full of potential, even if most people there were clearly devoid of the right social script to go to. Anyway, mundens has the overview, go check his account for more. Fortnightly on Thursdays from now on, worth a look if you’re that way inclined.
And I went to the 48 Hr Film Fest heat to see the premiere of our Jenni’s Angels film, Borkhard Hates You Too. It was fun. And VISUALLY AWESOME. Again, mundens has the scoop.
And I did other stuff that was busy but not blog-interesting, so I’ll spare you.