film

General

• Te Ara entry on creative life in New Zealand
• Find out about arts, literature and music events on EventFinder.

Music and broadcasting

Time out: recreation and leisure

Death of ‘Farmer Bill’ Massey

The New Zealand Film Archive began operation in premises it shared with the New Zealand Federation of Film Societies in Courtenay Place, Wellington. The sole staff member was its energetic director, Jonathan Dennis.

A decade later the Archive’s collection comprised more than 10,000 titles housed in seven buildings around Wellington. Fragile (and dangerous) early nitrate film was being preserved and acquisitions policy was increasingly being guided by historical research.

A poster advertising the 1956 film The Battle of the River Plate, in which HMS Achilles (then serving in the Indian Navy as INS Delhi) played itself.

Film-makers Peter Jackson and Costa Botes’ ground-breaking documentary about Colin McKenzie, the handsome young lost hero of early New Zealand movie-making, screened on TV One in the Montana Sunday Theatre slot. The documentary was later revealed as the biggest Kiwi film hoax of the century.

Coubray-tone News, the work of the inventive Ted Coubray, had its first public screening at Auckland’s Plaza Theatre. When ‘talkies’ arrived in New Zealand in early 1929 Coubray began experiments to make his own sound-on-film system.

Anna Paquin became the first New Zealander to win an Oscar for acting when she picked up the award for best supporting actress for her role as Flora McGrath in the acclaimed historical drama, The piano. She was the second youngest recipient in Oscar history. Jane Campion, who directed the film, made it a Kiwi double when she won the award for best original screenplay. The American actress Holly Hunter won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Ada McGrath.