JACOB POWELL on the New Zealand International Film Festivals annual short film programme.

2008 proves to be another year stock full of promising shorts from New Zealand directors. This year’s Homegrown (Programme 1) maintains the high level of work which 2007 saw come through, with perhaps a broader spread thematic coverage and production style.

Patu Ihu (Summer Agnew/2008/14 min)
An engrossing vignette about a young Maori boy ‘Narks’ and his experience learning a card game which connects the tangi (Maori: funeral/memorial ceremony) of two of his relatives who have passed away. During the first tangi Narks is a young boy, teased by his slightly older cousins, and watched over by his uncle Pakaru (the popular meaning of which is incidentally ‘broken’ or damaged) who teaches them all the eponymous family card game: Patu Ihu. When the second bereavement occurs, many years later, Narks is now a young man and this tangi is for the selfsame uncle who taught him the card game all those years ago. Now there is a new generation of mokopuna (grandkids) playing cards in the wharekai (dining hall).
Patu Ihu is well cast (Agnew obviously has some industry connections) with Calvin Tuteao (Victor Kahu on Shortland Street) convincing as the somewhat rough and unorthodox uncle, while Taungaroa Emile (No. 2) brings the right level of introversion and gravitas to the role of the older Narks.
Agnew’s short is a touching exploration of memory, the power of objects and spaces in evoking it, and the lifelong influences that a particular event can have upon us. Appropriately shot, Patu Ihu’s muted visual tone inside the marae buildings complements the sombre emotional tone of the piece. Anyone who has experienced a tangi will instantly feel the authenticity of the characters and setting whilst any viewer should be able to connect with the wistfulness of memory during a time of grief.

Take 3 (Roseanne Liang/2008/12 min)
Possibly the crowd favourite at this screening, Roseanne Liang has created a clever little black comedy which picks apart the cultural stereotypes faced by three young actresses of varying Asian ethnic descent. Present at the screening the director assured the audience that her film was meant to be funny and it was okay to laugh, pointing out that at a previous screening viewers were unsure how to respond to the awful behaviour of the various casting directors depicted in the short. Luckily Take 3 is very funny and the majority of the audience (myself included) were laughing out loud during much of the screening.
Liang, who also took on editing duties, makes smart use split screening which adds to the film rather than standing out as a ‘feature’ which is a problem some Homegrown shorts have had in the past. Alongside the vibrant colour palette her adept edit makes for a lively film; somewhat like a vodka and cranberry – the easy and pleasant drinking makes the slightly bitter edge very palatable. The penultimate scene where the three actresses throw back a pastiche of Asian girl stereotyping into the face of the slightly lecherous casting director (played with relish by a sufficiently smug Richard Thompson) is simply brilliant.
Confronting cultural stereotyping may not be new thematic ground to cover but Take 3’s vivaciousness and effective use of physical and verbal humour is a fresh and welcome approach. Top work.

The Road Out of Town (Adam Luxton/Jeremy Dumble/2007/12 min)
To my mind the weakest piece in this selection but by no means a weak short. This story of a young man’s hunt for his missing girlfriend in the slow open spaces of the South Island’s West coast unravels to reveal more mystery in the couple’s relationship, than in the suspicious events with which we are initially presented. The Road Out of Town explores the function (and dysfunction) of memory, when faced with loss and grief, in a unique way. Grief turned to self deception is stripped away by our protagonist’s acts of search and enquiry and ultimately ends in (bitter) enlightenment for both the viewer and the character.
Beautifully shot the directors make good use of native bush settings and the measured feel of small town New Zealand juxtaposed with flashbacks to an interior suburban environment. Unfortunately, for a film that adheres (mostly) to a narrative driven style the gaps in the narrative may leave the film feeling a little oblique to some.
Overall The Road Out of Town is an interesting short though in some slightly finer company.

Coffee & Allah (Sima Urale/2007/14 min)
The first thing I noticed about Coffee & Allah were the stunning colour contrasts – evident even in the promo pictures for the short. I guess it stands out all the more because many, like me, won’t be used to seeing such vividly coloured chadors, being more accustomed to plain black Islamic robes. But it is not just the colour that is striking in this film; the beautifully captured daily routines of the protagonist, such as the coffee making ritual, make this a visually rich production that is a pleasure to watch.
The story is of the evolving life patterns of an Ethiopian Muslim woman who slowly breaks out of her social isolation to meet new people who, along with her, are able to make it past the immediate cultural and language barriers. There is the friendly and interested barista, from the local café where she buys her green coffee beans, who would like her to try one of his coffees, as well as her mysterious badminton partner who lives over the high hedge bordering her property.
The only detractor from this short – and it really doesn’t detract from the individual film itself – is that the thematic matter has been well traversed over the last few years, and also by Urale herself (see Apron Strings, also playing at the Festival this year). But this is really very minor quibbling; Coffee & Allah makes for joyous, uplifting viewing and provides a foil to the many short films of a darker tenor that the New Zealand psyche seems to produce.

Cargo (Leo Woodhead/2007/12 min)
Probably the one of the most original ideas to make it onto film in the last few years of Homegrown short film selections, Leo Woodhead’s Cargo is not only set in the Czech Republic but is also in Czech with English subtitles! Yes, this is a New Zealand film; it just happens that Woodhead spent a student exchange in Prague during which time he told in film this dark tale from Eastern Europe.
Cargo is the story of a young boy who, in the opening scene, we see is part of a group of kids who are being sold across the Czech border as part of the trade in human flesh. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily) for our young lead there is some dispute over his price due to some major bodily scarring he has, so the driver decides to keep him instead and trains him up as some kind of apprentice. The poor lad is faced with becoming part of this awful oppressive system as a means to personal freedom (of sorts). How do you come to terms with this?
A thematically disturbing short, the experiences in this film seem far removed from the experience of most of us here in New Zealand, and yet we can relate to the quandary of choosing negative consequences for others so as to avoid them ourselves – albeit probably with less serious consequences. Despite the difference in terms of weightiness, the results of these kinds of choices are in a similar vein: the need to dehumanise others – and hence ourselves – to internally justify our choices. The spare looking landscapes/settings combined with the dark lighting in Woodhead’s production serve to reinforce these meditations. An intriguing story, there is certainly plenty of food for thought to be found in Cargo.

This is Her (Katie Wolf/2008/12 min)
Unearthing the extraordinary in the lives of everyday people was the goal of this production as stated by one of the producers at our screening. Certainly Katie Wolf’s debut short goes some way to achieving this goal. The plotlines that are spun out in This is Her are certainly the stuff of everyday life for many people we may know – perhaps including ourselves – but when distilled down in such a focused way do make for an interesting story.
Bringing to bear her experience in the film and television industry, and a cast of locally known talents including Mia Blake (No. 2, The Tattooist) and Sara Wiseman (Outrageous Fortune, Sione’s Wedding), Wolf has produced a polished and well contained short film. With its narration-over-visuals style it occasionally produces the feel of an extended advertisement or an introductory segment to a Grey’s Anatomy episode. Regardless, This is Her displays clever story construction – interweaving the various character lifelines to good effect – and looks good to boot; a good way to end an excellent selection of New Zealand short films.

See also:
» Fusion Cooking: Take 3, Apron Strings