Film Unit to make first trip to Cannes

Press, 4 May 1984, Page 20

Film Unit to make first trip to Cannes

The National Film Unit will be busy marketing during the next five weeks.

For the first time the unit will be represented at the Cannes International Film

Festival, to run from May 11 to 24.

“War Years,” a featurelength documentary, which portrays New Zealand in the 19405, using original N.F.U. library films, is the unit’s festival entry.

The unit hopes that, through exposure at the festival, “War Years” will be sold to overseas distributors and selected for international film festivals.

The Cannes festival comes after another important film-marketing event which will bring together from all over the world buyers and sellers of television programmes. The international television programme market known as M.I.P. TV, also held in Cannes, will take place from April 24 to 29.

About 5000 people from 110 different countries participated in M.I.P. TV last year. More than 1000 of these were programme acquisition chiefs from the world’s bigger television networks. While the Cannes feature film entry is a first for the unit this will be its sixth successive appearance at M.I.P. TV. The National Film Unit’s marketing director, Mr Peter Fowler, has gone to Cannes with the New Zealand delegation. Other members of the delegation include representatives of the New Zealand Film Commission, Television New Zealand, and independent film makers. Last year the unit

made a record number of sales at the five-day market.

The leading title in the unit’s presentation is “The Big Ice,” a one-hour version of the five-part series, programmes on Antarctica which was sold to 14 countries at last year’s market.

The series has been cut to one hour after research indicated that a shortened version would prove more attractive to American audiences than a series.

Three of the unit’s latest short documentaries will be offered for the first time to international buyers at the market.

“Logarithms” looks at forestry, “Great Escapes” highlights a wide variety of New Zealand outdoor activities, and “Islands Apart” is an impressionistic comparison of North and South Island scenes.

The unit is also showing, for a private film company, a new adventure documentary series for young adults called “The Adventure World of Graeme Dingle.”

Mr Fowler will market the unit’s commercial services and facilities as well as films while he is away.

N.F.U. facilities, such as its sophisticated laboratory services and latest Dolby stereo sound-mixing equipment, and New Zealand as a location for feature film production, will be promoted at the festival.