FILM FESTIVAL 93

Rip It Up, Issue 191, 1 June 1993, Page 35

FILM FESTIVAL 93

The launching of the 25th International Film Festival took place in Auckland with nibbles, a passable Chablis and Pinotage, a memorable Chardonnay and a preview of Wild Wheels, Harrod Blank's wacky paen to eccentrically decorated cars.

Bill Gosden, director of the Festival, talks enthusiastically about what's coming up. He's pleased that Auckland now has a third venue, occasioned by turn-away audiences last year. "This means we can programme the Showcase very much like we would the National Library Auditorium in Wellington, whereas the new venue of Midcity is perfect for the more commercial American independent action films." And the most eagerly awaited of these is no doubt Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi, a snappy thriller made on an almost unbelievable budget of $7,000.

For those who look on the Festival as a chance to catch European films, it's a sign of the times that many of these are now co-productions between two or more countries. Yet Gosden assured me that "ethnicity was not compromised, especially with films likethe Romanian The Oak and the Russian Urga. The most bizarre is Warsaw - the main characters talk in French, others in German, but the film is quite Polish in its content." Gosden works from a list of "definitely wants" to get his 97 programmes. And he feels we could cope with even more films in a fortnight. "A city like Vancouver which isn't a lot bigger than Auckland, screens at six venues at all times."

The Festival gets off to a strong start on July 16 with Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet, a delicious comedy about marital connivance in Manhatten that makes Green Card seem knockabout farce. Gosden is also enthusiastic about Rosa von Prauheim's / Am My Own Woman, a fascinating documentary which he describes in the programme as the "real Orlando".

Gosden comments in the programme that any festival showing films by Bresson, Orson Welles and Buster Keaton can't be all bad. And a season of five Keaton classics, brought together by Jonathan Dennis, is a scoop. It was difficult to locate the films ("they're owned by a German company called Suntrade with tentacles everywhere") and it's the big financial gamble of the fortnight ("they just have to work otherwise they will cost us a lot of money"). It's wonderful too to have the newly-released Welles Othello, imaginatively complemented by the director's Macbeth ("a five year old restoration but the most complete version seen here"). Gosden also has great affection for Welles's underrated The Trial, although lest the unsuspecting think that the director is continuing to make movies in the next world, I might point out that this film was made in 1962, and not in 1992 as printed in the programme.

And what about musical treats? Some will find fringe benefits in Jackson Browne's contribution to the doco Incident at Oglala and there's also the streetwise soundtrack of Nick Gomez's Laws of Gravity to savour. For some Jean-Pierre Gorin's The Crazy Life will be as much about rap music as the Samoan gang members who are the subject of the film. And don't got to the Canadian documentary The

Twist expecting nothing but a camp nostalgia trip. The period footage is often a hoot, but Ron Mann's film has a lot to say about how white America so shamelessly ripped off its black artists in the popular music industry. One of Gosden's favourite films is Elliot Caplan's portrait of composer John Cage and his companion/ colleague Merce Cunningham. "People who go expecting a primer will be frustrated, it works association-style and hops around a lot. But there's lively footage and a nice sense of their.everyday lives which is entirely appropriate." And the New Zealand quota? There are disappointments such as Garth Maxwell's new Jack Be Nimble not being available, and we have to wait until September for Jane Campion's The Piano, but Gaylene Preston's Bread and Roses is perfectly timed for Suffrage Year and Stewart Main and Peter Wells' deliriously extravagant Desperate Remedies will provide a few much-needed dollars for the preservation of the Civic. And what greater tribute could there be to the Baroque delights of Auckland's premier picture palace than Gerard Taylor's witty poster and programme illustration. '' WILLIAM DART THE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL RUNS Wellington July 9-24 ■ • Auckland: July 16-3 V Christchurch July 23-August 7 Dunedin July 30-August 14