February 9, 2025

New Zealand Crowded With Filmmakers

“We saw one of our own kind do it,” said Robert Sarkies, a Wellington-based screenwriter and director. “For a remote country that lacks industry and has a feeling of cultural insecurity, what Peter Jackson achieved is pretty huge.”

Still, some film people here worry that Mr. Jackson’s rise has come at a price. The New Zealand government has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Mr. Jackson’s mainstream movies and even rewritten labor laws to accommodate his Hollywood partners. What about other homegrown directors, particularly those interested in artier cinema? Is enough being done to make their careers sprout?

“The government has shown generosity toward these big films while smaller ones are left to struggle,” said Mr. Sarkies, whose movies include “Two Little Boys,” a comedy starring Bret McKenzie. “The fact is, government funding for smaller New Zealand films hasn’t even remained the same; it has gotten smaller and smaller.”

Patsy Reddy, the chairwoman of New Zealand’s film commission, disputed Mr. Sarkies’s assessment, saying that government support for smaller movies has not diminished — at least since 2008, when lawmakers created a film fund focused on smaller productions. Rather, she said, changes in the world film market and a strengthening local currency have made it more difficult for art house directors to match public support with private investment.

“Government funding doesn’t go as far as it used to,” she said. Ms. Reddy added that the New Zealand government was now undertaking a “major review” of the film fund.

Gaylene Preston, sometimes called Auntie Gaylene for her role in guiding young filmmakers here, made her mark with films like “War Stories: Our Mother Never Told Us” and “Perfect Strangers.” Ms. Preston, who lives in Wellington, last year added her voice to the protests against a plan to raise a “Wellywood” sign on a hillside near the local airport — the seeming mind-meld with Hollywood was a bit much for many New Zealanders, and the plan was scrapped.

This island nation has a long history of scrappy moviemaking, occasionally exporting indie darlings like Jane Campion, who won an Oscar in 1994 for writing “The Piano,” which she also directed, and Taika Waititi, whose comedic drama “Boy” was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize for world cinema in 2010.

Roger Donaldson was the first local director to cross over into Hollywood; his 1977 thriller “Sleeping Dogs” led to mainstream jobs like “Cocktail” and “Dante’s Peak.” Auckland has turned out filmmaking stars like Andrew Adamson, best known for directing “Shrek” and the first two “Chronicles of Narnia” films.

Despite all the attention focused on Wellington, where Mr. Jackson’s studio and Weta Digital effects operation sprawl, Auckland has a vibrant entertainment industry of its own. Robert Tapert, a producer who is married to the “Xena” actress Lucy Lawless, has formed the backbone; Mr. Tapert, in partnership with the American director Sam Raimi, produced “Spartacus” for Starz and is finishing a new “Evil Dead” movie. Tim Coddington, another Auckland-based producer, just this year had credits on both “Emperor” and “Mr. Pip,” a pair of independent films.

When it comes to supporting fledgling filmmakers, part of New Zealand’s challenge is the sheer number of them. Inspired by Mr. Jackson’s success, young people are swarming film schools here. Another measure of the cinematic fever that has gripped this country is V48HOURS, a national film competition where teams of amateur and professional filmmakers make a short movie in one weekend; about 750 teams participated last year, up from 270 in 2005.

Weta Digital itself is creating part of the surge. The company employs at times more than a thousand graphic artists, as it has lately in order to finish work on Mr. Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” and many of those people are now skilled enough to want to progress in their careers by directing movies of their own.

Mike Wallis, 36, is one of them. Just over a decade ago, Mr. Wallis was working at a Wellington ticket-selling company when Mr. Jackson’s personal assistant called with a favor: Could he buy tickets to the David Bowie concert even though they weren’t on sale yet?

“I said, ‘I’ll make that happen, if you put my C.V. on top of the stack at Weta,’ ” Mr. Wallis recalled in an interview at Joe’s Garage, a coffee shop here. Bowie canceled his concert, but Mr. Wallis was soon employed as a runner at Mr. Jackson’s company, where he rose in the ranks to become a manager in the animation department before quitting to make his own film.

Mr. Wallis spent about $60,000 to write and direct a spaghetti Western called “Good For Nothing,” which was released in New Zealand in May. Starring Inge Rademeyer (who is also Mr. Wallis’s fiancée), “Good For Nothing” took in $186,119, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com — a modest sum but more than has been generated here by some Hollywood movies, like Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie.”

But he is cautious about what’s next. “There is a talent pool here that has learned so much,” he said. “But whether it can be sustained — whether emerging filmmakers can grow in their careers with resources as they are — isn’t an easy question to answer.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/business/media/new-zealand-crowded-with-filmmakers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss