Two Kiwi films accepted at Venice Film Festival
The last time two Kiwi films screened at Venice was 20 years ago.
For the first time in 20 years, two Kiwi films will have world premieres at the world’s oldest film festival.
The Venice Film Festival was launched in 1932 and was embraced by the Mussolini regime as a major event on the Italian cultural calendar.
After World War II, the French launched the Cannes film festival as a rival to provide the film world with its most prestigious awards.
However, Venice survived the Fascist period and still ranks, along with Cannes and Berlin, as Europe’s top three festivals.
The New Zealand Film Commission, which has backed both films, says Jake Mahaffy’s Free in Deed will screen in the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of the festival while Pietra Brettkelly’s A Flickering Truth is in Venice Classics.
Free in Deed is based on actual events of how a Pentecostal minister attempts to perform a miracle on a single mother’s son.
Orizzonti is a competitive section for films representing the latest aesthetic and expressive trends in international cinema. This year it will be contested by 18 international films.
Pietra Brettkelly’s A Flickering Truth documents the preservation of Afghanistan’s film archive.
It follows three men who have dedicated decades to protecting the war-torn country's cinema from the time of King Amanullah Khan in the 1920s, through the invasion of the Russians, the days when women wore miniskirts and the Taleban rule when films were banned.
The 72nd Venice Film Festival runs from September 2-12 at the historic Lido Cinema. The last time New Zealand had two films screen in the festival was in 1994 with Sir Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and the adaptation of Alan Duff's novel Once Were Warriors.
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Nevil Gibson
Fri, 31 Jul 2015
Fri, 31 Jul 2015
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Two Kiwi films accepted at Venice Film Festival
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