Games film premiere

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33626, 30 August 1974, Page 1

Games film premiere

The premiere of the National Film Unit's film of the 1974 Commonwealth Games will be held in Christchurch on September 12.

The one hour 45 minute film includes eight of the nine sports at the Games. The manager of the National Film Unit in Wellington (Mr D. H. Fowler) said that wrestling was the only sport not included. The footage received was not up to the standard of the rest of the film and would have made the film too long. “There is swimming,” he said.

However, the Games Organising Committee’s executive secretary (Mr A. W. Barrett), who has seen the film, said that in his opinion there was no swimming. “All there is is a group of competitors approaching the blocks; they start and you see their feet disappear into the water and that is it. There is no actual event,” he said.

Mr Fowler said that the film was not an event by event record. “We had that on television. It is an interpretation of the Games, of the occasion, of the spirit, and it is from a

sporting point of view,” he said.

The Minister of Tourism (Mrs Tirikatene - Sullivan) will be host at the premiere in the Avon Theatre. Those invited will include all who were connected closely with the organising of the Games.

The film will Le open for commercial screening the following day in Christchurch and in Wellington and Auckland at about the same date. It will run for as long as there is a demand.

It will then be released throughout New Zealand on the Kerridge-Odeon circuit.