Standing Room Only for Sunday 10 February 2019

 

12:30 New Zealand Film in Berlin

Both new feature Vai and Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen have just screened at the Berlin International Film Festival - two of a record number of women-directed New Zealand films selected for 2019.

All up there are ten Kiwi films in official selection and 32 New Zealand filmmakers are there to capitalise on the exposure and networking opportunities.

We spoke to New Zealand Film Commission CEO, Annabelle Sheehan who is in the midst of it all in Berlin.

Two New Zealand short films, both directed by women, Hush and Ani  screen In Competition in the festival's Generation section and four New Zealand features and four shorts screen in the NATIVe section which this year focuses on films from the South Pacific region. Features Vai and For My Father's Kingdom have their world premieres at the festival, as will short films Liliu and Toa'ipuapugā Strength in Suffering. One Thousand Ropes, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale in 2017, screens in a retrospective along with short films Snow in Paradise and Va Tapuia.

 

12:45 Painting Protest - Lisa Chandler

Exploring issues around protests and riots, Germany based New Zealand painter Lisa Chandler's latest canvases portray anonymous people photographing slumped bodies, and others in gas masks.She's spent the past couple of years in Germany and after showing her paintings in Leipzig, she's brought them home for exhibition at Nelson's Suter Art Gallery.

The show is called The Dividing Line - and looks at protests from many perspectives including, protesters, security forces and bystanders. It opens Saturday February 16.

Lisa went to Liepzig in 2016 on a residency and decided to stay and research they city's history.

 

1:10 At The Movies

Dan Slevin is filling in for Simon Morris and this week he reviews three new films: The Hate U Give, Capernaum and Ben is Back.

 

1:33 The New Lost Generation

A cast of beautiful young people with time on their hands, on a Marlborough vineyard what could happen? It's the premise of New Zealand's latest independent feature film Hang Time inspired by Ernest Hemingway's novel, Fiesta; the Sun Also Rises but featuring the new lost generation - millennials. We speak to director Casey Zilbert

In this comedy three 20-something friends get some much-needed hang time when a cancelled wedding sees them spend a long weekend together on a beautiful vineyard,. But it's not all fun, sun and drinking games. There are bigger issues bubbling beneath the banter - workaholic Harry is ignoring a badly broken heart, self-styled fitness guru Ants is hiding some big baby news, and reformed party girl Jess can't decide if she should accept a life changing job opportunity. The world premiere of Hang Time is in Blenheim on Saturday February 16 at the ASB Theatre, Marlborough.

 

1:50 Movement of the Human

Multimedia arts installation? Dance show? Party? Gig? The work of live performance group Movement of the Human is all these things. Led by the trio of choreographer and director Malia Johnston, musician and sound director Eden Mulholland and visual designer Rowan Pierce, the trio created two of 2018’s most unconventional award-winning shows Meremere and Rushes. Their latest work - also called Movement of the Human - premieres this month at the Auckland Town Hall's Concert Chamber.

Mark Amery met up with Malia and Rowan: Rowan plays with Wellington band Glass Vaults and has worked as a live video artist with other people like Okareka Dance Company, and Malia has been making dance for 20 years, including directing WOW World of Wearable Arts.

Like Rushes their new work turns a space inside out and is a container for the work of 20 diverse independent artists. Later this year they hope to take Meremere  - a brave solo autobiographical work full of the wheelchair acrobatics and storytelling of Rodney Bell - on a South Island tour. Movement of the Human opens as part of Auckland Fringe 21st of February.

 

2:06 The Laugh Track - Donna Brookbanks

As guest this week actor, comedian, improviser and writer Donna Brookbank's picks are Justine Smith, Sarah Millican, Anne Edmonds and Ashling Bea.

 

 

 

2:25 Wara Bullôt - Reimagining Through Photography

The world's longest running photography exhibition this year features the work of Auckland based photographer Wara Bullôt - one of 54 invited international photographers in the Royal Photographic Society International Exhibition in Bristol. Wara's day job is as a science and marketing photographer at Plant & Food Research but her own creative work is quite different.

Two of her photos have been selected for the 161st year of the exhibition. Photographers from over 60 countries submitted more than 7,000 images for consideration.

"I'm so proud to represent New Zealand photography in this way looking at contemporary issues closer to home and the world." she says. "I hope my experience will inspire other young Kiwi photographers to be passionate, aim high and follow their dreams."

The selected images are part of her continuing series Know Where, which she began to assemble whilst studying at Massey University in Wellington. Those familiar with the city may recognise landmarks and locations such as Weltec School of Construction in Petone, presented as the reimagined future. The series explores the complex and co-existing relationship between nature and our built environment. Through layering multiple images and their meaning, by extension, Bullôt has created new visions of reconstructed ordinary landscapes as she tries to make sense of them and extract them from their original context.

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2:40 Brasch on the Expressway - Lynn Jenner

New Zealand poet and Landfall editor Charles Brash and the Kapiti Expressway, there is a connection for Kapiti Coast poet Lynn Jenner in the new poetry and essay collection she's working on called Peat.

Before it's published in a few months though, Lynn will be teaching at the upcoming Kāpiti Writers' Retreat in Waikanae, including a session on detail - and how much is enough and how much is too much. Lynn talked to Lynn Freeman about what the increasing number of workshops and retreats around the country offer would-be writers:  

Kāpiti Writers' Retreat in Waikanae starts on the 22nd of February.

 

2:49 The Impact of Russian Ballet

Two New Zealand tours by the famous Ballets Russes company in the late 1930s, had a profound influence on this country's ballet history. And beyond including on artists like Rita Angus.

That's the argument Christchurch dance critic Dr Ian Lochhead is about to present, when he delivers the second Russell Kerr lecture on ballet and related arts in Wellington at 3pm Sunday at Victoria University.

Dance critic for The Press, Lochhead on Sunday delivers the lecture in honour of the late dancer and choreographer.

Ian says his decade long research into his topic of choice started when he came across a programme for the 1937 Ballets Russes tour, in a box of old magazines.

 

3:06 Drama at 3 - Broken Heart in a Warzone

Our Drama this week is the first of two winning plays from the BBC World Service/British Council International Playwriting Competition 2018. A Broken Heart in a Warzone by Aziz-H received the English as a Second Language prize.

'Aziz-H' is a pseudonym for the winning writer, who lives in Yemen. He set his dark and uncertain comedy in an un-named war zone. Listen online here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csy5b9