N.Z. ‘sex’ film for Chicago festival

Press, 6 November 1978, Page 7

N.Z. ‘sex’ film for Chicago festival

The latest New Zealandmade feature film will be. screened in the American 1 Mid-West before it is seen • at home. “Skin Deep,” the first in-, vestment of the New Zea-i land Film Commission, will • have its premiere in Chicago j this month as part of the; Chicago International Film; Festival. According to an advance; review in the American; trade magazine, “Variety,”! the film shows a small town [ laid bare in a satirical way. • It also said it was “a so=|, berly paced but absorbing; tale and a work of art: Newi Zealand’s long-awaited: breakthrough film,” The film will be released! in New Zealand in February, i “An excellent script and! three-dimensional characters' flesh out this skeleton,” said! “Variety”: an apt. description ' perhaps for a film with a: massage parlour and sauna! (at its centre. Deryn Cooper, an Auck-'

Hand actress, is in the cen-l krai role of a masseuse who' “still emits plenty of erotic' 1 voltage" but “has hadj ■enough of the sex side of! (the business.” i Unfortunately, the towns-1 (folk have just started getting! I used to that side. I “Cooper turns in a near-] (flawless performance as a i disillusioned woman who ilearns that even hicks ex-’ Ipect more than a health-, .giving rubdown,’’ said] [ “Variety.” | Included in the look at Igood old New Zealand (double standards are “an upi right accountant who runs J amok” and “straying basebands on the prowl for parkour extras.” ( If “Skin Deep” is as j good-naturedly racy as the advance publicity makes it lout, to be, there may be a ’sprint to the box office. The Film Commission,: j. with a 40 per cent equity in Ithe §lBO,OOO film, would be. a big winner in that event. ,