In 2019, the New Zealand International Film Festival attracted a quarter of a million attendances to its 155 options from 47 nations at 13 centres across the nation.

Today, that festival’s future is doubtful, after a close to million-greenback loss in 2021. Covid-19 is being blamed however I imagine that’s solely a part of the reason.

In 2020, as the worldwide lockdown hit cinemas and film manufacturing across the globe, the NZIFF pioneered a hybrid mixture of on-line presentation and chosen screenings at 15 cinemas that have been nonetheless open. The variety of options fell to 79.

It was a mannequin efficiently copied by different festivals. Last yr, for instance, the French-language Cinemania in Montréal, Canada, had 77,000 viewers in contrast with 30,000 in pre-pandemic instances. It bought 1500 passports in contrast with the earlier yr’s 500. This tremendously elevated attendance was attributable to making the movies out there to all Canadians, with English subtitles.

This yr, Cinemania upped the hybrid mannequin to 100 on-line and 128 theatrical screenings of 85 options over 13 days. This in contrast with simply 63 theatrical screenings in 2018.

By distinction, the NZIFF gambled this yr in suspending the standard mid-July begin of the festival to October and ditching the hybrid mannequin in favour of theatres solely. The resolution proved disastrous. A 3-month lockdown pressured a full cancellation in Auckland and Hamilton, whereas attendances in Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and eight different centres didn’t cushion the monetary blow.

Poor attendances

The poor attendances can not have been because of the lack of a high quality providing. The Christchurch programme ran to 100 options, together with a number of dozen should-see award winners which can be the core of any festival.

What had modified was the path and advertising and marketing of the festival from a path it had adopted for some 50 years, for the reason that first Auckland International Film Festival staged in 1969 (and which I attended). That was adopted quickly after by Wellington, ultimately morphing into the New Zealand International Film Festival, because it was identified till lately.

The historical past of those festivals, and their origins in earlier makes an attempt, is instructed in The Gosden Story, a $50 shiny, espresso desk e-book edited by Dame Gaylene Preston and Tim Wong. It is compiled from the writings of Bill Gosden, who died in 2020.

He began work on the NZ Federation of Film Societies in 1979. Two years later, he changed Lindsay Shelton as director of the Wellington International Film Festival, then in its 11th yr.

Its most celebrated attraction was Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs.

Original impulse

It was the sort of film that prompted Gosden to jot down: “The impulse that brought the first Wellington and Auckland festivals to life was the desire to see movies that weren’t making it to New Zealand.”

Bill Gosden in his workplace within the 1990s.

Later, introducing the 1998 programme, he wrote of a “magnificent selection of films about blood sports, bad fathers, sexual masochism, addiction, racist politics, sexism and cruelty in the workplace, murderous homophobes, prisoners on death row, children who murder, brain-damaged accident victims, to be or not to be, the Holocaust and, to cap it all, a documentary about the ageing process.”

Festival followers will acknowledge not a lot has modified within the content material of the world’s greatest movies, and nor ought to it. But evaluate Gosden’s concentrating on with that of his successor, whose intentions have been described as follows in a single newspaper interview: “High on his wish list is reaching audiences who aren’t usually represented among the urban middle class, and slightly older fans.”

Therein lies the reason, I imagine, of why the festival has grow to be a cultural sufferer, in financial phrases, of the category struggle towards the center class. It has occurred in different arts, equivalent to opera, and in makes an attempt to abolish live performance radio, the place the core function and audiences are ignored in favour of an agenda to undermine lengthy-standing values. The success of writers’ festivals, additionally Covid-affected, is that they aim a identified and dependable market with out hidden agendas.

Many battles

Gosden and his colleagues understood this, and fought many battles in an business the place commerce, artwork, and group requirements conflict at many ranges. Not the least of those is authorities intervention by means of censorship and a income seize that imposes prices on all film screenings.

In the early 1990s, Gosden was publicly attacked by the censor for “objectifying women” and as a end result she banned Henry; Portrait of a Serial Killer. It was the start, Gosden writes, of a cultural struggle about “cancelling” movies that “demean” folks.

A scene from Alfonso Cuaron's Y tu mama también (And Your Mother Too)A scene from Alfonso Cuaron’s Y tu mama también (And Your Mother Too).

In 2002, the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards tried cease the opening night time screening of a Mexican film, Y tu mama también, by means of an injunction that was overthrown solely hours earlier than begin time. Today that film, directed by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron, wouldn’t trigger a blink in contrast with what’s out there on TV or Netflix.

Meanwhile, the theatrical facet had undergone dramatic adjustments from a regulated two-chain system tied to specific distributors into an open market that would compete with house viewing of video cassettes and DVDs.

The high quality of cinemas improved, after Hollywood-controlled distributors stated they’d favour funding in multiplexes, and entrepreneurs equivalent to Barrie Everard noticed alternatives in full-time arthouse cinemas.

Upgraded theatres

Gosden supported these strikes, resulting in the upgrades of the Embassy in Wellington, the place Sir Peter Jackson staged a Lord of the Rings world premiere, and the Civic in Auckland.

After the millennium, the business went by means of extra dramatic adjustments with the change to digital manufacturing and projection. Cans and spooling of film have been changed by digital units, vastly lowering prices and enhancing accessibility.

film festival programmeThe programmes have been a distinctive a part of the festivals.

Filmgoers might entry abroad critiques on-line to see what was out there, and video shops have been booming. The festivals responded by tremendously growing their choice. The 2006 programme, for instance, ran to 228 pages in A5 format, in contrast with 2019’s 100 pages in A4. If something, the festivals turned bloated by including many extras equivalent to animation, Ant Timpson’s Incredibly Strange, and the promotion of shorts.

While the preliminary Wellington festival in 1972 provided simply 9 movies, opening with Eric Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee, no-one might presumably see greater than a proportion of the 160 options screened in 2013 or the 177 in 2018.

Not all overseas

Although the festivals have been primarily about overseas movies, and seeing one of the best of the world’s different cultures, Gosden gave beneficiant entry to the native business, even when it wasn’t absolutely justifiable on business grounds.

The festivals, earlier than 2020, have been self-supporting at as much as 95%, with a prime-up from authorities companies to advertise the output from the closely subsidised manufacturing sector.

Bill Gosden in one of his last film festival appearances.Bill Gosden in considered one of his final film festival appearances.

In specific, Gosden tracks the festivals’ assist for Preston, from her Mr Wrong in 1985 by means of to My Year With Helen in 2017, in addition to for Jane Campion, from Sweetie and Angel at My Table in 1990 to this yr’s The Year of the Dog, which, whereas filmed right here, is about in Montana.

But Gosden’s lesson is that the main focus of a world festival ought to be on the important thing viewers proposition to see one of the best of the world’s cinema, not a prop for native producers.

Of course, some meet each standards, as Campion and others confirmed with The Dark Horse, The Rehearsal, and Poi E. So did Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures back in 1994.

The Godsen Years. Photo: Liam BrownThe Godsen Years. Photo: Liam Brown

The unsure future

The way forward for a world film festival for New Zealanders, versus one selling cultural change to fulfil desired outcomes, stays to be seen. It will want a big injection of funds. The worst final result could be a authorities bailout with strings hooked up. Overseas distributors gained’t be impressed by the dearth of business nous proven by Gosden’s successor, who has since resigned and returned to the Netherlands.

As for frozen-out Auckland festival followers, there’s some compensation in Timpson’s ‘In the Shade’ festival over a fortnight in late January at two impartial however lower than excellent cinemas. He has chosen a whopping 35 overseas options from the Christchurch NZIFF programme and added one other 17. That leaves 27 overseas options, by my depend, that will or might not floor once more now that every one cinemas are open.

Festival buffs ought to observe that a minimum of 20 titles from each lists are in Sight & Sound’s prime 50 of 2021 chosen by 100 world critics. If Timpson and his colleagues succeed, he could be an acceptable individual to hold on Gosden’s legacy.

The Gosden Years: A New Zealand film festival legacy, by Bill Gosden. Edited by Gaylene Preston and Tim Wong (VUP).

Nevil Gibson is a former editor at massive for NBR. He has contributed film and e-book critiques to numerous publications.

This is provided content material and never paid for by NBR.