Helen Brew, acclaimed world-wide, but almost ignored in N.Z.

Press, 16 July 1980, Page 14

Helen Brew, acclaimed world-wide, but almost ignored in N.Z.

Helen Brew, the film producer of “Birth,” often muses - that if she had been a man, the cameras .would have been rolling on her. film career much earlier. Now this Wellington actress, teacher, and therapist, who is also a mother of five children, is poised to launch the biggest film undertaking anyone in this country has attempted — man or woman. She has contacts at the heads of' major agencies round the' world, such as Unicef, the United Nations, the La Leche League. She lias won over diplomats, eminent specialists, giant film corporations. She has piles of press clipping and letters to proveit. Yet till recently she had. to struggle even to get appointments with some agencies, boards and Government departments in New Zealand. Her files document the progress of the $1.2 million film series she is making on the shaping of human beings, called “The Foundations of Life.” ’ Her pilot film of the series, “Birth,” which featured R. D. Laing, was first screened in New Zealand in 1978 and later won international acclaim. . “A Matter of Life and Death,” said “Time Out” magazine. “A Plea for Gentleness for the Newborn,” said the “New York Times.” “Making Birth Human for Mother and Baby,” the “Chicago Tribune” said. The- “London Guardian” headlined it “Happy Birthdays,” and Rome’s “La Republica” said simply. “Un Film Esplosivo.” Tn New Zealand, the Health Department has yet to buy one copy — “and that’s the type of thing it was made . for.” Exasperation catapaults her momentarily out of her chair. Mrs Brew has just won New Zealand funding for pre-production work on the series funding for which she says she had to

spend 18 months campaigning. - The list of world-leading specialists and humanitar i a n organisations which appear to have raced to pledge backing for the series is formidable, but she had drawn a blank in New Zealand almost from the outset. A change of government almost undermined “Birth” before it was born. Mrs Brew was suddenly denied funding she had been promised and it took a nine-month battle to get it back. Then, while the film’s overseas debut caught her up in a dizzying round of forums, interviews, discussions, negotiations and plans overseas, it didn’t even make the New Zealand stand at the Cannes Film Festival. She shakes her head and says almost reluctantly: “When I look at the - diffi-

By

JANE CLIFTON

culties I’ve had, the fact that I’m a woman can’t, be discounted, I’m afraid.” “If I'd been a man, I think I would have had all the necessary discussions long ago.” She says she got the impression the New Zealand attitude was, “Who is this woman? Is she for real?” T. T ' in Australia, where she says the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the Film Commission helped her considerably, she confided her problems to top film-makers, Margaret Fink and Gill Armstrong. . ex“When I said I. was’ having ' trouble getting finance, they said: ‘We know, it’s an oil scenario.’ They went through it years ago, though.” . ; Her son Phillip, also working full-time on the project, says the sexist obstacle course extended overseas — at first,- anyway. . . ■ “Their attitude was, ‘She doesn’t even know what she’s doing. How COULD SHE?’ " . ’ Times change. Mrs Brew

proceeded to. add to her string of eminent doctors, professors and specialists the watchful interest of Time-Life, Polytel Europe, Thames International, the Public Broadcasting Corporation in Los Angeles and Films Incorporated in the United States — and there are more. Time-Life told her “Foundations” look like being an expansion of their best-selling documen tar’y “Rack-a-Bye Baby.” Backing came from Australia’s Channel 7 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. Violence-on-television expert, Dr William Belson agreed to take part in the series, as did Dr Aiden McFarlane from Oxford, “Continuum Concept” author Jean Liedloff and New South Wales Health Commission child -psy-

chologist Peter Cook. Again, there are many more. Mrs Brew has it all in writing and on file at her son’s Miramar home, but sne says that for a long time she couldn’t get New Zealand authorities to even look at any of it. to prove she wasn’t a charlatan.- . ..'1 ' The way she tells it, her circuit of contacts is pretty high-powered. /She tells-of attending a premier of “Birth”, one night and sitting next to an Indian - mayor. By the end of the evening, .she agreed, to include Dehli in her shooting ■ schedule, because he insisted on helping.-, . She wound up on firstname terms with Yehudi Menuhin and ’ his wife; Glenda Jackson' agreed to front the series; Rewi Alley offered . help > in China. \s.” ’ -- ?. - She tempers the highpowered talk with/the odd ironic smile.>• J ; “Tn America they weren’t intergstedvlnitiallv, because it/whS/toO' nitty-

gritty. No baddies or guns , in it.” ; Mrs Brew was preparing to leave last week for three mbiiths more re.- . search and . location, study ' — in a mere 25 cities, as, the itinerary now stands. When she recounts her bureaucratic, brick Walls, she doesn’t sound accusing : or bitter. Just weary.. When she tells of the. money that finally . did . come from New Zealand, it’s with affection. Why, when she says she could * have started the series 18 months ago, .did she risk losing the international interest she’d . drummed up just so New; Zealand could be in volved? In the 1950 s and ’6os, New Zealand was leading the world in the issues with which this series deals'.. “There’s ho question. ' The ' international leaders I spoke to all recognise, that. But New Zealanders : don’t seem to know it.” ' , ■ “In/ preventive mental health care,’ in the parent education field, we were pioneers.” Her exasperation builds again. “It’s tire quality of this work that people don’t know about. It’s not recognised in high places. It’s not even funded.” “No wonder these people finally bang their heads on concrete walls and leave the country.” But not Mrs Brew. Not till she had finance and support from the Government, government agencies and a number of trusts. “Beautiful” is how she describes having pre-pro-duction money from the Film Commission, the Commission for the Fut- , ure, . the Departments of • Internal Affairs,'. Social .. Welfare and Education, the Broadcasting Corporation, the; International Year . of the Child Telethon Trust, the Todd Family Charitable Trust, the Sargood bequest and the Sir John Hot. Trust. She still jabs a wry finger at a few. bureaucratic anomalies. “At Time-Life I can get. an appointment quicker,’? than I can here.” However, she seemsmore anxious- to discuss

her reasons for making the series. She’d been dreaming about a series on birth, child rearing and the basic factors that ’mould people since about 1972 . . . “never really believing that any such thing could be possible, but the impact the ‘Birth’ film made internationally really seemed to pave the way,” she says. “It made it clear that such a series could be made to share my real concern and passion — that knowledge was not being shared with the public. There’s a sort of conspiracy of silence. Ordinary human beings are. not told when they bring up children the sorts of things that arise. The answers are very complex-.” ■ ; . I Her aim is to have world experts sharing their insights with the public.