The Beaconsfield Films

In New Zealand, we spent the better part of a day conferring with the Prime Minister and his cabinet, while hundreds of students picketed the Parliament Building carrying signs bearing peace slogans. These officials were courteous and sympathetic, as all the others had been, but they made it clear that any appreciable increase was out of the question.

– Former US Defense Secretary Clark Clifford looks back on his 1967 visit to Wellington to discuss sending more troops to Vietnam, Foreign Affairs magazine, July 1969

I returned home puzzled, troubled, concerned. Was it possible that our assessment of the danger to the stability of South East Asia and the Western Pacific was exaggerated? Was it possible that those nations which were neighbours of Vietnam had a clearer perception of the tides of world events in 1967 than we?

– Former US Defense Secretary Clark Clifford recalls questioning the legitimacy of the Vietnam War after his trip to Asia and the Pacific, Foreign Affairs magazine, July 1969

Enthusiastic to do our own thing, we roamed the city and environs and made some films. These films gave us an opportunity to play hands-on with ideas inspired by the films we were seeing. They are our made-up as you go, experimental efforts to discover the language of film.

– Graeme Cowley, on making student films in Wellington with Michael Heath and Rex Benson, in his backgrounder

Cinemagoing was popular in New Zealand at the time, and new films from overseas were in vogue ... at Beaconsfield we were in our element: we had our own projector and were able to source many of these films for our own private viewing.

– Graeme Cowley on living with other student filmmakers at their Beaconsfield flat in Wellington, in the 1960s, in his backgrounder