For Art's Sake - A Century of Cinema

In this excerpt from the 1996 TV One arts series, presenter Alison Parr interviews the NZ Film Commission's longtime marketing director Lindsay Shelton about the international success of Kiwi films. Shelton attributes the recent popularity of Once Were Warriors and Heavenly Creatures to Kiwi stories being different and new — "everything in our films was unexpected". Roger Donaldson, Geoff Murphy, Jane Campion and Peter Jackson are mentioned, with special note of Jackson's "confidence and wish" to stay in New Zealand's "tiny as well as fragile" film industry. 

The reality which international film goers are getting about New Zealand, which is very hard for us as New Zealanders to understand, cope with or even believe, is the exotic thing really. How different, how exciting, how appealing. People see New Zealand movies and then they say 'oh my god, I've got to go to this place.'

– Lindsay Shelton

Key Cast & Crew

Pamela Meekings-Stewart

Producer

Alison Parr

Presenter

Lindsay Shelton

Subject

Daniel Salmon

Director

Amanda Evans

Producer, Director

Carolyn Weston

Research, Director