Robin Laing: Producing our stories…

Gaylene Preston has called Robin Laing 'an oasis of reason and practicality' in the chaos that is filmmaking. Laing began making feature films at a time when women producers were rare in New Zealand. Since then she has produced an eclectic mix of features, short films and arts documentaries, and often lent a hand to emerging filmmakers.

In this ScreenTalk, Laing talks about:

• A movie-mad childhood
• First meeting director Gaylene Preston, who persuaded Laing to try out producing
• Being told to go get a man — and also that women 'are not an audience' — while getting debut feature Mr Wrong off the ground
• Distributing Mr Wrong themselves, after sellout festival screenings somehow persuaded distributors and TV networks the film had no audience
• Her interest in history and telling our stories
• Behind-the-scenes stories of covert property-buying for comedy hit Ruby and Rata
• Persuading MP Sonja Davies to let a man write her story on the acclaimed Bread and Roses
• Paying tribute to treasured collaborator Graeme Tetley
• Working with filmmakers Shirley Horrocks (Flip & Two Twisters) and Niki Caro (The Vintner's Luck)
• Her interest in working with emerging fimmakers, including on an anthology series for television
• How women's stories have become more acceptable in the market place

This video was first uploaded on 6 November 2012, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview and Editing - Ian Pryor. Camera - Alex Backhouse