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Press, 13 May 1987, Page 27

PA Cannes New Zealand film officials reported a brisk trade as Cannes’ fortieth film festival celebrations lurched into full swing. It is New Zealand’s eighth effort at Cannes, and despite fewer than usual new films on offer, the Film Commission’s marketing director, Lindsay Shelton, said sales three days into the festival were good.

Interest from countries such as Portugal and Japan had meant the “allup” cost of financing the Cannes delegation — a record 20 this year — had already been more than paid for.

Fears New Zealand had lost the fresh, innovative image it had brought to Cannes when it arrived eight years ago had proved unfounded, Mr Shelton said.

“I had wondered how long we could manage the new - boy - on - the - block image,” he said. “But we really have maintained it.”

Of the New Zealand films screening daily in Cannes, the centre of attention both in the festival marketplace and in the more prestigious “Critic’s Week” is “Ngati,” the first New Zealand film to be chosen for the critics’ event.

Also featuring in the market is Sam Pillsbury’s new movie, “Starlight Hotel,” which stars

“Smash Palace” childheroine Greer Robson and Peter Phelps. “Footrot Flats,” the popular Murray Ball car-toon-movie, already breaking records in Australia, has joined the New Zealand line-up. The commission director, David Gascoigne, said the smaller number of new films this year did not mean bad news for the industry. The new titles were just three of the 48 films both the Film Commission and

Challenge Film Corporation, the marketing arm of Auckland-based Mirage Entertainment Corporation, were pushing at Cannes. “It is the smallest number of new films we have ever had — but they are all good ones,’ and it is very important for us to keep a presence here.” He predicted at least six new New Zealand films would feature at Cannes in 1988.

“The rough times are not over but things are a little better than they were.”

The small number of films reflected the difficulties film-makers had getting investment finance: Film had been “singled out” by the Government for taxation changes in 1984, he said.

But film-makers were now looking at other ways of raising funds, particularly through co-produc-

tion agreements with other countries.

“What I am saying is that film is not at a disadvantage any more.

"Film-makers are a robust breed of people who cope well with adversity. Which means we still have an industry that keeps on going in spite of the buffeting it’s had,” Mr Gascoigne said.

Cannes was the most effective international forum for selling films but it also provided contacts for producers to work out

deals. New co-production contracts with several countries — New Zealand already has one with Australia — were being discussed and would probably be announced before the end of the festival. “We have been coming here for eight years now and it has paid off,” he said. “We have to be involved with the market at Cannes — we can’t avoid it.”