Cloud South Films

Crass Commercial Documentary

2011-08-18T14:28:00.003+12:00

Crass Commercial Documentary
It was a bit of punch to the guts really - the accusation that we'd somehow damaged documentary in New Zealand by crassly commercialising This Way of Life. To us it was marketing. You know, that essential part of the life cycle of an independent self-funded film that hopefully ensures you can continue producing and pay the rent. I know some filmmakers feel marketing is a bit beneath them. For others it's a mystery - a skill set so different from filmmaking as not to be part of the process. Except it is. For us it all begins with "who are they?" those magic people who will watch our film and then tell others to watch it too. Is it crass to exploit any and every angle you can think of to get your film in front of an audience? Can you be an auteur and love PR and marketing at the same time? Did we go too far in marketing This Way of Life? What do you think?

Berlin
If you've been following here you'll know we've been busting a gut to get Yolanda's Last Portrait ready for the Berlin selector here in NZ early October. But as they say 'changes in travel plans are dancing steps from god'. Our editor found herself between a schedule rock and a hard place. So we've had a change midstream. Will this be good for the film - we'll soon find out. Certainly we are very confident - more on this soon. The travails of editing would fill a whole book. Or perhaps it's just us.

THIS WAY OF LIFE updates
As independent filmmakers we're always wanting to do everything ourselves. But when you have a good distributor who knows their end of the business it's all good. We went with ZED out of Paris for our broadcast sales. So far they've sold This Way of Life to: Iceland, Asia TV, National Geographic, Catalunya, ABC Australia, France TV, TV Cultura, Viewcom NV, Noga Communications and High Fidelity. They have another new deal waiting to be inked too.
While closer to home we just sold the film to Air New Zealand. Better late than never.

For those wanting an update on the Karena family - they are doing good right now. The new baby (a perfect and as yet un-named girl) is really as perfect as baby can be. The older kids spent their school holidays with their dad in the mountains. We hope to soon bring you a little announcement on a great new development too.

COMPOST TO SAVE THE WORLD
In our spare time we recently honoured a promise to Peter Proctor, the hero at the centre of the documentary One Man, One Cow, One Planet. The short instructional DVD Perfect Compost on how to make compost the biodynamic way is just 25 minutes but packed with how-to from the master himself. It goes perfectly with Peter’s new book Biodynamics for the Home Garden. The DVD and the 82-page manual (published as an ebook only) are here: http://perfectcompost.com/
If you’re into home gardening and starting out on the biodynamic pathway then this DVD is useful. (note to One Man, One Cow fans – Perfect Compost is an instructional so does not have the filmic qualities of a big screen production)

Looking for...
Cloud South Films is looking for that special someone to help us with our websites. If you're comfortable with php, wordpress, css, and photoshop and love documentary and can handle panicked last minute demands and abuse over the phone then we'd love to hear from you. Email Sumner: sumnerburstyn@gmail.com (I'm really very nice on the phone)

Coming this Saturday on Rialto TV in New Zealand The Insatiable Moon. Tune in and be amazed. The Insatiable Moon was made using the Simple Cinema(c) technique. How did they do those brilliant locations on so little money? That is the question.

And coming to a cinema near you just in time for Fathers Day - the heartwarming Steam Of Life. Bring your Dad and a hanky.

OUR BIG FAT iTUNES RIP-OFF

2011-08-07T16:27:00.007+12:00

OUR BIG FAT ITUNES RIP-OFF
When it comes to small fry, Cloud South Films is inanga.
We’re one unpaid, married couple, some willing adult kids and an occasional intern. It would be fair to say we value every cent we bring in.
So when we were approached by Michael Bloom – who claimed he was an iTunes producer with all the right connections - we were pretty excited.
Bloom explained his ‘special relationship’ with iTunes very clearly. Most importantly he claimed he could get us on the front page. Of iTunes! This was huge. Our fortunes were made.
He just needed the cost of digitsing up front. We scrapped together the US$1500 (it was really US$4000 but he liked us so was helping us out).
We had a 24p Master of This Way of Life made at our expense. We shipped it all of…. And you can see where this is going right? Straight into the Las Vegas version of a Nigerian scam.
Of course iTunes had never heard of him. No digitizing ever took place. His address was dodgy. There was no ‘special relationship. There was just a couple of fools and their money waiting to be parted. If you’re reading this Mr. Bloom – there’s a special place reserved for people like you. Hopefully a long way from sitting ducks like us. Oh the joy of independent filmmaking.
And in other news: If you’re in Auckland Sunday 4th September get the girls together and make an afternoon of it. http://www.missrepresentation.org/auckland.html

Join our newsletter mailing list by clicking here.

SIMPLE CINEMA(c)
Simple Cinema is a book on effective, low-cost filmmaking from your founding idea all the way through to the marketing and selling. For a while it was called Frugal Filmmaking and before that: ‘Kamikaze Lighting for the Low Budget Cameraman - a socio political manual on the Etiquette of the Film Set.’ (I kid you not).
The first half of the book is all the techniques and ideas Tom has learned and developed from over 30+ years on film sets all over the world. It’s fair to say many were squandering their big budgets while he was quietly squirreling away ideas on how to do it differently. The delightful and amazing The Insatiable Moon was made for an insanely low budget using Tom’s techniques. By the way – catch it on Rialto Channel Beginning 20 August at 8:30 p.m
The second half is all about what to do with your independent film the day after you close the edit room door. It’s not the fastest book in the world to write. But stay tuned as we will soon start offering snippets and anecdotes gleaned from our experiences (see iTunes above).

FOTON RELEASING
In our spare time, in addition to producing our own films we also dabble in a little theatrical distribution in New Zealand of others films. We’re still just finding our way in this complex arena but one thing is for sure: New Zealand has a whole raft of really great, committed and skilled boutique, digital cinema operators.
So far this year we’ve released the totally wonderful US made doco Queen of the Sun
And the great NZ doco Sam Hunt, Purple Balloon and Other Stories.
In September we’ll be running with the amazing, heartfelt warm fuzzy doco Steam of Life.
We love this film. If you’re in New Zealand call your local independent cinema to make sure they’re screening it. You don’t want to miss it.

THIS WAY OF LIFE and OTHER NEWS
After the iTunes debacle we got serious about VOD and Streaming. It’s a complex and fast moving area. Onlinefilm.org came to our rescue. Run by filmmakers for filmmakers they have transparent, no cost systems and share profit equally with filmmakers. If you’d like to download the film for 8 Euros or stream for 24 hrs for 6 Euros click here..
They are also hosting One Man, One Cow, One Planet
This Way of Life recently screened on Maori TV. It was one of their highest rating Sunday features – rating higher in the repeat than it did in the first screening. 178,510 viewers tuned in to the first screening on 22 May and 247,050 viewers tuned in to the repeat screening on 5 June. We love MTS by the way. They scheduled the film with integrity and respect and this was repaid with audience support.

This Way of Life in Official Selection at the 8th Annual BendFilm Festival October 6 – 9, 2011!

This Way of Life screening at the Webster University Film Series, St. Louis' on September 2, 3, & 4.

Looking for a great, totally unique HOBO camera? http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=396258853&permanent=0

BE THE CHANGE!

Here We Go Again

2011-07-31T11:40:00.009+12:00

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
Or – 'here we go again' Abba (sorry Shakespeare)

We are in the last few weeks of editing Yolanda’s Last Portrait as we get it ready for the Berlin selector (see below). It’s a bit of cliché, but we really did start with one idea and ended up making a completely different film.

We began with assumptions about Yolanda and her life. Especially running inside the directors head. Yolanda is Tom Burstyn's aunt. As he was growing up she was shrouded in mystique. She was a whirlwind of fabulous: sexy, profane, uninhibited. He says he can remember her sexual vibe as young as four (so he says). The film was to be a celebration of all that. And it is – but aging is something none of us is really prepared for. Perhaps the more extraordinary your life the harder it is to grow old. In the editing room it is excruciating. How to honor the fabulous in the midst of the reality is only part of the challenge.

BERLIN BERLIN
In 2010 This Way of Life was selected for the Berlinale. It was a huge honor and the first stage of our release strategy. We went on to win a Jury Prize at Berlin and a bunch of other great awards - including being shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards (short-listed means we made it into the top 15 but not the final five nominees).
So the editing push is on for Yolanda's Last Portrait - to get it finished and in front of the Berlin selector Maryanne Redpath when she comes to New Zealand early October. Fingers crossed.

GENTLEMAN RACER’ A STEP CLOSER
Search for the Gentleman Racer has been a long time coming. This film has been playing inside my head for more than 10 years. During that time it’s changed and changed again. Last week we made a funding teaser. We’ll be sending it off to the New Zealand Film Commission along with a fully-fledged production proposal in September. Stay tuned here for discussions on the subject matter – identity and belonging – as we pull it all together. Wish us luck.

COMPOST TO SAVE THE WORLD
In our spare time we recently honored a promise to Peter Proctor, the hero at the centre of the documentary One Man, One Cow, One Planet. The short instructional DVD Perfect Compost on how to make compost the biodynamic way is just 25 minutes but packed with how-to from the master himself. It goes perfectly with Peter’s new book Biodynamics for the Home Garden. The DVD and the 82-page manual (published as an ebook only) are here: http://perfectcompost.com/
If you’re into home gardening and starting out on the biodynamic pathway then this DVD is useful. (note to One Man, One Cow fans – Perfect Compost is an instructional so does not have the filmic qualities of a big screen production)

THIS WAY OF LIFE UPDATES
Last week This Way of Life won the peoples choice awards at the Iowa Independent Film Festival. It’s always good to win – but for our money the audience awards are the best. After all that’s who we are making films for.
And just to add to the excitement This Way of Life will soon be coming to you via VOD. Watch this space.

Sign up for our new newsletter
As filmmakers we are rather peripatetic (as in a bit all over the place) so I suspect this newsletter will be the same. But follow us if you're into warts-and-all, low-budget, married-couple filmmaking angst. We grapple with technology, each other, weighty issues of objective and subjective truth and how to deal with such things as the low-life-sack-of-shite guy who posed as an iTunes producer and took our money and our Master - but more on that next week. Join here. Sumner Burstyn

getting our priorities right

2011-01-29T13:47:00.005+13:00

It’s an interesting process to be shortlisted for an Oscar. In Los Angeles the screenings went really well. People clapped and the Q&A went on for some time with really great questions. At the end a small crowd gathered round to talk about the film. One woman proffered an A4 poster of the film and asked me to sign it. Then she held out a large headshot of me that she’d downloaded and printed on glossy paper. She wanted me to sign that as well. Oh so now I’m signing headshots of myself like I’m a star. Later I asked her why she would want my autograph. It’s what she does, she said. ‘Just in case’. Like an insurance policy – in case I get famous. I think that little incident is emblematic of the Oscar short-list palaver. Certainly it’s a distraction. A pleasant one to be sure. But it’s easy to see how quickly it can become about the hype and the glory and the reason for making the film, the impulses behind it is somehow lost.

To some the Oscar nomination is the most important thing in the world but to most of the world it’s of no consequence at all. I think (I hope) we sit between those two poles. Dinner with the Karena’s last week bought that home. This charismatic, amazing family. The kids are growing up. Wellie’s voice is changing, Aurora is becoming even sweeter and her dad was praising her increasing skills with horses. Malachi is even more charming and perceptive, while Elias is intense and observational, drawing the world at every chance. Corban is clear eyed and smarter than ever and Salem is so full of her perfect world, more confident and competent than any other four year old I know. They hoovered up a table of food; they conversed with us and engaged the entire restaurant in their bright world. And that’s where the real glory lies – in the day-to-day life of this family and the great privilege of being part of their journey.

(with Fraser Heston and his son)

Imagine This

2011-01-16T08:43:00.003+13:00

Imagine this - our protagonists live in a mansion in the best part of London, in a four storey house that is so chock a block with paintings, books, theatre maquettes, sculpture, archaeologia and assorted bic a brac that there wasn't enough room to open the legs of the tripod I humped all the way from NZ. This is not a small house by any maens. Next door sold for 7 million pounds last year, This is a street of rock stars, diplomats and high financiers - these are BIG houses. The house is jammed, there's no room to breathe - by definition we have to be in our movie - I can't frame Sumner out. But the filmmakers play only supporting roles if you like. So now that we're in the movie, we've opted not to have any narration, but to accentuate the feeling of claustrophobia and read the narration ourselves. Especially since I'm the nephew.

And that's the point - there is no accuracy in reportage: News coverage is biased simply through the great remove of time and distance between subject and viewer. We as documentarians make no pretense at being objective. This results in (I think) a wonderful back & forth in our feelings for the characters. One moment we love them, the next we wonder at how difficult they are. Hopefully this will reflect the difficulty Yolanda is having in her efforts to paint a commissioned portrait, the simple likeness of a bland Oxford Academic. What is an accurate likeness? Is a photo accurate? At the end of the movie, the filmmakers ruminate over their inability to capture a true likeness of their 2 subjects and hopefully, the audience will be as intrigued by their efforts as the filmmakers are of Yolanda's portrait.

not really seeing eye to eye

Enmity of Kin

2011-01-07T15:54:00.007+13:00

On the surface This Way of Life and our new film currently in post Yolanda’s Last Portrait could not be more different.

This Way of Life was filmed in the wild open of backcountry New Zealand. Yolanda’s Last Portrait was captured inside the last unrenovated house in the posh St Johns Wood district of London.

But according to Georges Polti there are only thirty-six dramatic situations. As we edit our way into the heart of the story for Yolanda it is increasingly clear that we are stuck on number 13: Enmity of Kin. In This Way of Life Peter Karena has made his life in direct opposition to his malevolent father. He is everything his father is not.

In Yolanda’s Last Portrait, Yolanda and her brother Joseph have made their lives in the shadow of the cruelty of Freda* their long dead stepmother. Her selfish behavior was legend. She buried six husbands, exiled her inconvenient 11-year-old daughter to a boarding house to care for herself alone and stole most of Yolanda and Joseph’s inheritance right down to their fathers favorite writing desk.

The double blow of losing a real mother and gaining a classic evil stepmother is evident in all Yolanda’s intense and remarkable paintings. There is that search for the purity, the wordlessness of the primal experience of connection with mother and the darkness, that flipside of all a mother can be and the damage that strikes at the deepest heart when that relationship is broken.

It is instructive to realize how our earliest relationships shape us the most. Certainly both Peter and Yolanda are living in that shadow. It’s a shadow few of us escape, no matter how successful we make our lives.

*Freda was Tom’s grandmother, her exiled daughter his mother.

A Trojan Horse of Blessings

2010-12-25T21:51:00.004+13:00

A remarkable analysis of This Way of Life by Mary Trainor-Brigham (Shamanic Screenwritng) for her Deep Cinema series.

A Trojan Horse of Blessings

The iconic image of a ruggedly handsome man atop an equally impressive steed ~ rearing up between dappled grassland and dazzling sky, mane and tail lashing in all directions ~ tells us some essentials about THIS WAY OF LIFE, the sterling documentary it advertises.

It tells us, in a glance, that the man in question is capable and seasoned, outdoorsy and independent, the sort of man who can probably fish and hunt, read the land and weather, wrangle wild horses and build their corrals ~ living as best he can outside any deadening constraints of Western civilization. And all of this proves to be true.

What this image doesn’t disclose is that what we actually have here is an inverted and updated Trojan Horse, in the best possible sense of the term. Instead of being the predictable tale of a Lone Ranger, THIS WAY OF LIFE reveals that the rider, Peter Ottley-Karena of Aoetoara/New Zealand, is a man for whom marriage and family are of paramount value. The question this story poses is ~ can he secure his beautiful, growing, and beloved brood a home, with his integrity intact?

Opposition to this dream resides closer than even the usual social, political and economic demands that erode the likelihood of obtaining freedom in this day and age. For Peter is the chosen enemy of a stepfather who still operates out of the worst possible facets of the old Patriarchal paradigm: the will to be divisive, destructive and, above all, domineering.

This documentary begins with the Ottley-Karena family living contentedly in a humble house, over 100 years old, which has been handed down the Karena line for seven generations. And while they hope to secure ownership when the stepfather puts it on the market, the older man’s dodgy dealings insure that they cannot even place a bid. This sets off a domino effect of conflict which escalates from intimidation and deceit to assault, theft, and vandalism ~ with the very societal elements which should provide the family protection only adding to their vulnerability ~ creating circumstances so relentlessly stressful as to trigger anguishing loss. Can they rally? And endure? It is, time and again, truly a matter of life trumping fiction.

Director/Cinematographer Thomas Burstyn and his wife, Producer/Writer Sumner Burstyn, bore witness to this young family’s travails and triumphs for years, and such dedication shows. This allowed them to not only transcend the Lone Ranger motif, but to also evolve beyond the classic struggle ~ albeit of Mythic proportion ~ of whether a Son can indeed carve out his own destiny rather than be subsumed by the grinding will of the Father. This timeless opposition is part and parcel of the story, and indeed gives it passion and propulsion. But even as it dramatically plays out, it is augmented by prophetic challenges spilling from within this Trojan Horse ~ can the calcified Patriarchal model be shattered, not only the younger man’s determination, but by the vibrant voices and value of women and children as well?

I-Thou vs. I-It

Peter’s bonding with his horses, at its best, reminded me of how philosopher Martin Buber developed his “I-Thou” relational model, which he contrasted with, and valued over, Patriarchal society’s far too common “I-it” subjugation. As a youth Buber had a most beloved steed, and felt in turn the animal’s enthusiasm for him. Whenever he went from home to stable he could sense a frisson of recognition, a mutual delight shimmering between the two of them Then one day he entered the barn with a different attitude, an objectification allowing for a cold measure of the sales value of the handsome horse-flesh before him. The noble beast immediately registered the difference and never forgave his owner. And thus a new philosophical theory was co-created!

And while Peter avers that the horse “must be to man as man is to God,” you get the ever-increasing sense throughout this film that he’s not apt to be making Buber’s youthful mistake in his deeply engaged way of life. Not with his wife, Colleen, and six children so close to heart. Yes, six, count ‘em, as Peter does from his perch in a stunning tree situated over a river gorge, citing a true litany of love for Llewelyn, Aurora, Malachi, Elias, Corban and Salem. In the Asian art of Feng Shui, the element wood represents ancestry/authority. And indeed, Peter’s intimate mixture of confession and vow amplify his maturity as he explains how their youngest child, Salem, coming as she did in a time of crushing turmoil, saved his soul. If his honouring of a wee spirit isn’t enough to achieve a polar reversal of the Patriarchal power template, add to it his poignant resolve to spend the rest of his life becoming worthy of his wife’s love.

This profound familial devotion is the hinge of the film, providing a stake in the sand a quantum leap beyond what torment Peter endures from his natal lot, and will likely set you rooting for the Ottley-Karenas 1000 %. The stepfather is an oppressive shade for much of the film, with the viewers thinking he might emerge at the auction, at the home, or at a Sunday service ~ thus a well-wrought and tantalizing tension is maintained. Colleen thoughtfully describes how her family’s respect for all members makes Peter’s family’s modus operandi alien and sad for her. So it is a woman who leads the way into a more peaceful model. And it is another woman, Producer/Writer Sumner Burstyn, who finally breaks through the fourth wall of witness and goes toe-to-toe with the stepfather, an encounter which reveals that his heretofore well-documented sense of divine entitlement and caprice can actually bleed into crazy-making incoherence. And all the while he maintains a dictatorial tone of self-righteousness, employing a twisted brand of psychic aikido by which he mutates every exchange into service of the old commandment, “Honour thy father and they mother.” Egad.

Cinematic Magic

I first had the pleasure of viewing Thomas Burstyn’s cinematic skills in Mike and Rosemary Riddell’s wondrous THE INSATIABLE MOON, and so knew I could count on more of his excellence here. He supplies an impressive dance of interior and exterior revelations: buzzing flies feeding on a puddle of crimson blood; unflinching steadiness as Llewellyn’s horse staggers on a steep mountainside and sets off a wee avalanche; Colleen’s handsome, tender face as she foreshadows, then reveals, a tragic loss; the family riding bare and bare-backed off a cliff and into swimming waters; an image of Jesus juxtaposing a jagged, blown-out windowpane as Peter ponders the need to be peaceful when rage swells up within him.

The Burstyn's have in their main man an articulate, homespun philosopher equally comfortable pondering matters familial, economic, social, political and spiritual. But theirs is no “talking head” presentation. They ground such abstractions with their rich genius for weaving the visual, the aural, and the sensate. Indigenous Maori sensibilities are subtly infused via an ongoing thread of reverence for nature. Indeed, we are taken from a Western objectification of land, weather, animals and family to a richer participation in genuine relationship with all, and finally, into an almost alchemical, shamanic immersion from which you won’t want to emerge.

As Peter’s ruminations move us from the outside of a horse to its inner spirit’s bond with his (I-Thou), from his outer-world travails to his willingness to use them to polish his soul, we visually ride with him from mist-ribboned woodland down into rain-drenched water and up again into a panoramic, volcanic, mountainous panorama: no less than a death and rebirth, an initiation. And before he encloses the porcelain-pale face of his youngest child (the one who saved his soul) into the black-leather embrace of his jacket, we catch a glimpse of her expression, as silently enigmatic as those of their ancestors’ portraits in the nearby graveyard. And thus the lineage is unbroken; a thread of goodness and wisdom is shown to prevail, despite the brutal and misguided efforts of one apparently lost soul.

While celebrating how this documentary fires flawlessly on many cylinders, I must admit it left me dissatisfied on a couple of points. One is that Peter is shown to be far too calm in the face of the worst destruction endured, with Colleen (ordinarily so generously disposed to mirth) and the children left to express the tumultuous emotions: she with anguished expression, they by acting them out with toy soldiers or by burying them into the deep subconscious realm of mermen and mermaids. Even if Peter wanted to restrain himself for whatever reasons, it seemed unnaturally cool not to have him at least gallop off to detoxify some of the rage he admits to only a year later. Another omission for me was not to learn anything about Peter’s relationship with his biological father. Whenever children are adopted into blended families, ghosts bloom and must be appeased, and I was left hanging on that key issue. But these are sins of omission, and what we are shown is very smooth and engaging indeed.

Cinema Verite

The challenge for actors in fictional films is to so embody their characters so as to convince us they are real. Since documentaries, cinema verite, begin with that state of genuine incarnation, what do we ask of them? More profound revelations: an assurance that even the quotidian cycles of life may be as replete with magnificence as “mundane” sunrise and sunset can. That children, creatures and cosmos are interwoven. That our innately sacred, ordained covenant to unfurl and forge our souls will be fulfilled. That even when our dreams are crushed, new directions will be revealed, this time stirring from within. THIS WAY OF LIFE provides all of this.

In modern initiatory work can be found a phrase, “the burning of the Summer Home,” describing the necessary loss of childish dreams, a loss which we must endure in order to ignite a more evolved destiny. Here such conflagration is a literal, cruel and unnecessary attempt to sunder the ancestral line. In the face of such anguish, we seek the phoenix’ resurrection most avidly, longing to be assured that heritage has a deeper frequency than materialism, that grief and growth are indeed two sides of the same coin.

Ultimately this apparently modest slice of life, via deft story-telling, provides an arc of development which applies not only to one family in the back of beyond, but engages entire cultural gears: our shared longing to deconstruct an old model which is abusive of far too many and to supplant it with one of our own making. As our rigged economic system and oppression by corporatocracy collapses, THIS WAY OF LIFE becomes an option that feels vital and venerable rather than quaint or exotic. I want to wrap up this review with high praise: by the time the credits rolled, I was left feeling, in a quiet yet indelible way, that these beautiful people are necessary to our way of life, as they display our participation in nature, and demonstrate that the personal is universal. May their message radiate worldwide.
Mary Trainor-Brigham

Cardinal Sin

2010-12-25T13:31:00.003+13:00

The editing room is like the confessional. There’s just nowhere to hide your mistakes, your conceit or your assumptions.

As we get down into the nitty gritty of editing Yolanda’s Last Portrait we’ve realised we are not making the film we set out to make. This revelation causes issues – for one it has exposed the flaws in our filmmaking. We committed the cardinal sin of assumption.

We thought we knew the story before we even switched on the camera and we carried that assumption through our filming and now it has come back to bite us.

But the beauty of true stories is how no matter how we try to manipulate to suit our own agendas the truth wants out. While the camera lies with every frame, it conversely also reveals the truth. It takes an editor as finely tuned as Cushla Dillon to allow that truth to out. And we grateful to her.

This Way of Life calendar and events

2010-12-15T17:46:00.008+13:00

Hi All

As we creep up to the day of the announcements for Academy Award nominations (January 25th) we’ll keep you informed about screenings and events.

FREE SCREENING

The Writers Bloc FREE screening of This Way of Life in Los Angeles on Saturday, Dec. 18 at 11:00 a.m. was SOLD OUT in one day.

Writers Bloc is committed to screening great films so we are in very fine company with Nicole Kidman's Rabbit Hole and The King's Speech. Laemmle Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 9004

Thank you Writers Bloc for supporting independent documentary.

HELP NEEDED

As we work to gain a profile for This Way of Life prior to Oscar nomination voting we would love you visit the IMDb site and vote for This Way of Life, write a review or leave a comment on the message board.

This Way Of Life has come so far because of the support of people who have seen and loved this little film.

The success is proof that we all want to see great movies with heart, emotion and intimacy above all else. Fingers crossed for January 25th. And thank you all.

SCREENING IN BRISBANE

Don't forget, This Way of Life is screening in Brisbane right now at the Blue Room

The Blue Room are famous for their great private functions if you're looking for something different to do.

SCREENINGS IN ADELAIDE

Screenings in Adelaide at the Mercury Cinema: Sat 22 Jan 6:45pm, Sun 30 Jan 4:15pm, Sun 6 Feb 6:45pm

NEW ZEALAND FILM ARCHIVES SCREENING

This Way of Life screening at the NZ Film Archive 26 January 2011, 7:00pm, The Film Archive mediatheatre, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington

Q & A PODCAST

Australian International Documentary Conference recently ran a screening with a SKYPE Q & A - listen here: http://aidc.com.au/calendar/events/178

the Karena kids today

The Secret Weapon

2010-12-13T09:04:00.006+13:00

People always ask how we’ve managed to propel our ultra low budget film so very far. I think the answer is simpler than even I realized: We always had dreams and grand designs which we held in our minds, ignoring the reality along the way. We became adept at glass half full: No crew? We’ll shoot it with just the two of us. No equipment? We bought a cheap camera, tripod and microphone. Gear just gets in the way of intimacy. Bad experience with a ghastly editor? We’ll start over with a brilliant one (Cushla Dillon). No distributor for a theatrical release in NZ? No worries, do it ourselves with a big dollop of help from Smith & Sumner and our amazing daughter Rachel. No money for marketing? Social media works better along with a lot of help from our other amazing daughter (and designer) Ruth.

Yes we did plan out the life of the film with dreams of a golden statue floating in the distance, never mind the details of how to get there were sketchy. We really did make it up as we went along. And it hasn’t been a dream run. There have been rejections along the way. Paths taken that ended in roadblocks. Opportunities missed for lack of money or insight.

But lately we’ve been a bit like the parents of a gifted child, trying to take credit for the shortlist success when in fact it has always been the audience and the films’ subjects who have propelled us forward. In Los Angeles right now we have Kean & Kolar, brilliant awards specialists. They have screenings lined up in Hollywood, an awards invite list of the right sort of glitterati and enough chutzpah to propel this smallest of films into the imaginations of those who vote. There’s the New Zealand Film Commission who are providing support in all the right places. The Doug Apatow Agency is also on board with generosity.

So our secret weapon in a nutshell? Ignore reality. Hold the dream. Make it up as you go along. It’s not exactly an Academy Award strategy, but as we sit just one step away from that nomination it’s our secret weapon.

Tom at work in the Ruahine mountains

Short Poppy Syndrome

2010-11-27T15:53:00.008+13:00

When I was growing up I’d come home from somewhere a little excited and my dad would ask if I’d seen anyone I liked better than myself. The correct answer was always yes – even if we didn’t speak it out loud.

It was just not the Kiwi way to blow your own trumpet. We didn’t like to be seen as too full of ourselves, and we were always mindful of getting above our station. It was a powerful disincentive to success - that subtle, unspoken distrust of individual expansion.

But fuck all that. Our film This Way of Life is short-listed for an Oscar.

We didn’t just get lucky; it isn’t a trick of the light. We set our sights high, we risked our financial future, we held fast to a belief in our work even when others didn’t get it and we worked assiduously every day towards this goal. If we don’t go forward into an Oscar nomination then so be it. It’s still a huge achievement, even if I say so myself.

And for what it’s worth, the real answer was always no. As a kid growing up in small town New Zealand in the 60’s I really did not meet anyone I liked better than myself. It just took me a few decades to realise it and rid myself of short-poppy syndrome. This week I do think I’m the cat’s pajamas. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I Populist

2010-11-26T21:26:00.006+13:00

In the closing hours of the Anûû-rû âboro film festival in New Caledonia I got into a debate with the head of the Jury – the greatly esteemed and very erudite French documentarian Denis Gheerbrant

I wanted to understand how and why the jury had chosen the Chinese film Aoluguya, aoluguya as the winner. Of all the films in this festival I rated this the least likely to win and perhaps even one of the worst I had ever seen.

Gheerbrant described Aoluguya, aoluguya as a film of raw power, unflinching in its portrayal of dispossessed alcoholic Mongolian Reindeer herders. The filmmaker was supposedly drunk with the herders. He was ‘inside their madness’ therefore the portrait was as real as you can get through the distance of a camera.

To me the film offered no context, no commentary. The characters do not express drunken wisdom or even an understanding of their condition. It’s as if the filmmaker shook himself clear of any notion of beauty, of redemption or hope and saturated himself and therefore the audience in a portrait of a humanity so utterly disintegrated it is literally unwatchable.

And it was this honesty that so impressed the judges.

I get it totally. I understand its ethnological value, even its uniqueness in a world where sound bites and entertainment rule. I also understand why the Jury saw this film as being in opposition to the often lyrical and heavily narrative nature of our Anglo-Saxon film grammar. And perhaps it is right here in Aoluguya, aoluguya that we can begin to understand the frustration and anger that often accompanies first-world hegemony - extended even into the realm of documentary.

It was acknowledged the award (with NZ$6000 attached) was given in the vain hope that now, endorsed as it has been, Aoluguya, aoluguya would not drop like a stone, unwatched by all but film purists.

Personally I doubt lack of beauty or context or narrative is really a sign of greater honesty. Because even with all its ethnographic purity, the reality remains: as soon as you turn on a camera you create artifice. It's just that in this case the filmmaker has chosen not to dress that artifice with any technique or style.

And while Monsieur Gheerbrant was generally appreciative of This Way of Life, the implication was we had spoon-fed our audience. “You are a populist filmmaker,” he said and went on to explain our use of musical cues and editing techniques created an easy watch and therefore a fantasy.

Of course he is not entirely wrong. (see Truth is a Whimsical Poetry)

But we want to make films people want to see. We want to win awards for the emotional and visual quality of our films – not as some form of sympathy fuck.

We have a philosophy of film making that includes respect for character, and a desire to bring light. And these are the tools we use to subtly to subvert the dominant paradigms of our world. After all you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. p.s This Way of Life won the Youth Jury prize. The young people told us later how moved they were by the portrait of family and how they all understood the problems faced by the Karena family and were inspired by their strength. Let’s hope they hold on to that honesty and don’t end up in a French film school.

The Nickel Mines

2010-11-07T19:01:00.003+13:00

It was a strange moment. We are sitting on mats on the concrete floor of the open-side meetinghouse in Napwe Wiimia village in the Kanak region of New Caledonia waiting for the film to start, a bleak missive from China.

The director is here, all long hair and stooped artistic temperament. The Chinese cultural group from Noumea - six little girls and their fans are about to begin when a hush comes over the area. A troupe of about 50 Chinese men with shaved heads and bright orange jump suits appear out of the darkness. Perhaps in anticipation of a surprise song and dance routine we give them a big round of applause.

But it is only after they have collected themselves into a tight knot to be welcomed by the village chief do we realise they are Han Chinese miners and construction workers allowed out for a few hours to participate in a little local culture.

The film is about the destruction of the lives of Inner Mongolian reindeer herders. It is nihilistic and voyeuristic and within a few minutes most of the men have shuffled outside to smoke and take photos of the children, closely watched by their blue shirted minders.

These men are the new face of free trade. They are indentured human cogs in the pantomime of destruction for profit being enacted in every developing country unlucky enough to hold mineral deposits.

Here they are razing the rain forest and building a coal-fired power plant to fuel local nickel mines. While in other new mines we are told sulphuric acid is already leaking into the water table, an entire mountain is being destroyed and the landscape forever reduced to a wasteland.

In this village were fruit literally hangs from the trees, where the river flows clean and children roam free, the film plays on - every character destroyed by the loss of their lands and lifestyles. And I wonder at the wisdom of busing in these men in their surprisingly Guantanamo-esque jumpsuits to a festival designed to expose the destruction caused by free trade and globalisation. It is either a stroke of subtle genius or an act of unconscious acceptance of what is to come.

What if they had a film festival and no producers came?

2010-11-04T10:43:00.007+13:00

What if they had a film festival and no producers came?

Unthinkable. Unless it’s the Anûû-rû âboro film festival in the Kanak region of New Caledonia.

Here I’m keeping my producer cap in my luggage as we hang with documentary directors from around the world.

It’s a big commitment in terms of time and not just the 60 hours each way some must travel. This is perhaps the only festival in the world were the business end of the business is virtually non-existent.

At the Berlin International Film Festival the meetings were in 10-minute parcels, here they run for hours over a pina colada or two.

So why are we here? (aside from the luxury hotel (with free breakfast) the pool and the ocean right there). I think it’s because this one festival represents why we make documentaries. We’re here to share obscure worlds with people who do not even have a cinema. We’re here because none of us make our movies for money (and here every screening is free). We’re here for the community of filmmakers, our shared passions and experiences.

But perhaps the real reason we have all suspended our busy lives to be sequestered in one of the remotest parts of the planet is something more subtle. We’re here, as it turns out, to reconnect with our filmmaking id. Somehow producers and distributors just wouldn’t fit.
p.s the id is: "It is the dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it we have learnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of this is of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We all approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations... It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organisation, produces no collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle."
—Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933)

Why We Make Documentaries

2010-11-02T17:08:00.002+13:00

Please take a moment to read this inspiring speech from the opening of the ânûû-rû âboro festival:

"Those who trumpet the merits of the free market would have us believe that globalisation is the only path to prosperity.

That we have no choice and that the economy, services and culture should bend to market rules and that we should kneel before the new all-powerful God of merchandise.

Images have become a marketable product and a formidable weapon. We are submerged
in images from morning until night, more and more of them, moving quicker and quicker.

To go fast, you have to be brief, to be brief, you have to be simple. But can our world and its peoples' realities be packaged into simplistic television approaches formatted for maximum audience ratings?

Documentaries are clearly a lifeline in the general stifling of critical thought by the totalitarian market. Where sensationalist society organises a simplified mock portrayal of reality, the documentary approach is an attempt to grasp and question a complex world.

The documentary appraises reality more than reflecting it. Therein lies the philosophy of the ânûû-rû âboro festival, which in its fourth year continues to believe in alternative unalienated documentaries, articulating the true message of the world's peoples outside the prism of dominant thinking which as we all know- is that of the
dominant class."
Paul Néaoutyine
Président de la Province Nord, New Caledonia

Please feel free to cut and paste and distribute this speech far and wide.

"It's a Conundrum"

2010-11-01T15:00:00.003+13:00

Audience response is a finely nuanced thing. You sit at the back of a screening and feel the audience. You get so you almost notice the shift in air pressure and you become conscious of the moments that work with each audience and those that pass by.

Last night as we presented our film to the people of the Tiwaka Tribe in the far north of New Caledonia we realized this audience took away different things. They were embarrassed by the naked swimming scene and appreciative of the horsemanship. And Colleen and her magnificent parenting was the biggest hit of the night.

As independent filmmakers submitting proposals to broadcasters, commissioning editors and funding agencies for our new films we are required to indentify audience, often in a precise way. What this really means is audience most likely to realize a financial return.
But we want to make films for audience irrespective of their financial demographic, films that move people from the suburbs of Berlin to the tribes of New Caledonia. But to be a good bet for funders we need to narrow our films to fit market descriptions. As Peter Karena says, “It’s a conundrum”.
New Caledonia
Berlin

Film Survivor, New Caledonia

2010-10-31T18:26:00.003+13:00

What happens when you sequester a dozen or so fiercely independent filmmakers from all over the world in one isolated place and make them all watch each others films?

It’s a tough one since all of us have struggled to make our films and none of it comes easily and we’re all hyper aware of that struggle.

But inevitably some are very good, some not so much. How we traverse those issues as the films are rolled out over the next few days will be most interesting. Film Survivor? – I feel a reality TV show coming on.

This Way of Life nominated for CamerImage prize

2010-10-31T00:33:00.003+13:00

New Zealand film This Way of Life has earned its director / cinematographer Tom Burstyn a nomination at the world-renowned cinematography festival in Poland. The International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography PLUS CAMERIMAGE is the only festival dedicated to the art of cinematography. The festival's unconventional format sees films honoured according to their visual, aesthetic and technical values.

Tom described being nominated as one of his life dreams. “To be honoured by your peers is an amazing thing,” he says. To read more about Plus CamerImage please visit: http://www.pluscamerimage.pl/index.php?lang=en

Festival at the end of the world

2010-10-30T22:59:00.006+13:00

As I write we are lying back on loungers in front of our classic beach bungalow; lapping ocean, white sandy beach, coconut palms. We are at the Anûû-rû âboro film festival in the Kanak region of New Caledonia. The only festival where there is no film industry, no producers, no business at all to speak off and not even a movie theatre. In fact no resemblance to any other film festival at all.

Except the organisers have programmed some of the best, the most challenging, award winning and relevant documentaries screening in the world today. And invited all the filmmakers for 10 days. So here we are – documentarians from Russia, France, Burkina-Faso, China, Spain, Papua New Guinea, Columbia, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Germany, Egypt and Aotearoa sequestered in a resort at the end of the world. Many have travelled 50 hours or more to Noumea, only to be driven another six over a torturous mountain pass to reach the classic beachfront resort of glossy tourist brochures.
But the resort accommodation is just the icing. We are all here to present our films in communal open-air meetinghouses in local villages. And talk about their themes, about the big issues of the world told through the often-small stories of local heroes.
At the opening ceremony in the Tribu de Napwe Wiimia village the President of this region gave an impassioned speech worthy of Martin Luther King. He articulated for us the local struggle for independence and connected it to struggles for sovereignty all over the world. He spoke eloquently about disenfranchisement and free trade, about corporate control of resources and colonialism in this very colonialised nation.
He took us as filmmakers beyond our ego to the role and function of documentary in society and welcomed us into the world of the Kanak people.
The vision to stage a documentary film festival here, to bring people from all over the world to screen their award winning films for an audience of local villagers is a remarkable feat of inspiration and profound vision. We are reminded why we make films and we are honoured to be here.

2010-10-11T18:54:00.002+13:00

This Old House
Memory is a strange thing. We have just moved into a house I lived in for a good portion of my twenties. Back then I was a single parent with three young daughters. Twenty something years later I’m a happily married grandmother. If you had asked me about my memories of this house I would have described the dinner parties, the shit food my kids made for me, the fun we had as a family, the fun I had privately.

But coming back here now I realise memory goes beyond the things we can recall. In some ways it is embedded in the creak of the stair, the night patterns the streetlight makes on the wall, the sound of the wind in the window frames. And something else, less tangible. It is the sense of my inner life, the other me that co-existed with all that life, that has came flooding back. On the first night it was so powerful it woke me. It felt as if the house was conscious of itself, of me, of its 100 years of shelter, of its walls and floors seeped in the emotional life of its inhabitants. I imagine I will gradually loose that acute sense of connection as we settle into new rhythms in this old house. I’m sure from this base, albeit a temporary one while we settle in Auckland, we’ll create new memories along with a new film or two. Watch this space.

Big Mouth Wins

2010-09-22T10:57:00.003+12:00

On Facebook, Garth Maxwell, one of my favourite people in film commented - “Do we really need media awards? Should it be a competition? I always respected Woody Allen for boycotting the Oscars.”
I totally agreed with him. But that was before we won Best Documentary Director and Best Documentary at the Qantas Film and Television Awards last weekend. Hearing our names called and running up on stage to collect our awards from the Hon Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Broadcasting was a blast. And there’s nothing like staggering out of the theatre with the awards cradled in your arms – even if according to Taika Waititi they look like vaginas.
Later, on reflection I wondered if Garth were right and just how much of a crapshoot winning film awards in NZ really is. On the night great films were passed over for mediocre, complex and intelligent scripts lost out to shallow ones, inspired design for less-than inspired.
But perhaps it is our idea that there is some even handed, totally balanced viewpoint out there that is at fault. Like if you just weigh all the pros and cons you’ll come up with the perfect answer; fair, transparent and obvious. Instead I think film awards, like every other subjective thing are as flawed in application as the people who are deciding.
At the after-party Ant Timpson looked around the excited throng and declared it a room full of people I’d pissed off in the 80’s. It was a 42Below joke for sure but given how small NZ is and how big my mouth he was not altogether wrong. That said, despite how popular This Way of Life has been, it’s amazing we won anything. I’m thrilled we did. I think I’ll leave the boycotts to Woody Allan (sorry Garth).
Roman with his grandparents awards

Written From a Small Dark Room

2010-09-11T08:33:00.004+12:00

No discussion of film making would be complete without at least touching on the process of editing. Some will know it’s not my favorite subject. When we were cutting One Man One Cow we were just starting out. Our storytelling confidence was low and it didn't work out with the editor. Our second editor was frypan into fire, tyrannically controlling his little dark space as if our presence was his greatest problem. Then we began work with Cushla Dillon on This Way of Life and we learned how peaceable and collaborative the process could be. But still sitting with the editor is something I’ve tried to keep to a minimum, my naturally rebellious nature balking at the confines of low light and repetition. So in Vancouver working on the sales trailer for Leonard’s Lovers with Brendan Woollard has been a challenge. Maybe more so as our co-producers are of in Toronto at the premiere of their fabulous new feature film Daydream Nation and Tom is shooting a TV series 15 hours a day. So I’m alone with the decisions. Challenging for sure. Thank god for solace of Leonard.

From There to Here

2010-09-09T05:20:00.004+12:00

Filmmaking, it turns out is less about point, focus, shoot than I could ever have imagined. We finished editing This Way of Life in July 2009. It’s been quite the adventure so I thought I’d recap all that’s happened since the day Cushla Dillon (our favourite editor) turned off her computer.

We’ve screened at the following film festivals: NZ International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival, Heartland Film Festival 2010, CineMagic Film Festival 2010 (Ireland), HotDocs (Toronto), London International Documentary Film Festival, Children’s Jerusalem Film Festival (Israel)
RainDance International Film Festival (London), Wairoa Maori Film Festival 2010 (New Zealand), Sydney International Film Festival, Darwin Film Festival, Festival ânûû-rû âboro at Koohnê (Koné) in Kanaky (Nouvelle-Calédonie). And there’s a bunch more to be announced soon.

We attended Vancouver and began to get a feel for this festival business and the potential they offer for growing your network. We flew to Berlin with Colleen and Wellie, where we won a Jury Prize, the only documentary in a line-up of strong feature films. Back home we won Best Aotearoa Documentary at the Wairoa Maori Film Festival 2010 - for us a coveted endorsement from the toughest audience of all. And next month we head to the Festival ânûû-rû âboro in New Caledonia.

We pre-sold the film to Knowledge Network in Vancouver – which is btw the best model for public TV I’ve come across. Not just in their mandate to acquire the world’s best documentaries but to commission and engage with filmmakers with great respect and care.

We sold the film to ZED distribution in France with broad sales rights and have begun to learn the intricacies of dealing with international interests. We sold the film to Gil Scrine Distribution in Australia.

We self-distributed in NZ, opening in 25 cinemas across the country, rising to 35 screens. 18 weeks later we were still screening in key places. And today the film is still screening in special events and independent theatres.

We’ve featured in dozens of articles across media in NZ. Variety magazine (the film world bible) said the film beyond mere portraiture and into a realm of metaphysics, melancholia and cosmic doubt. The facebook fan page gained nearly 4500 active fans. To my mind that’s a huge base for such a small documentary. We’re up for four awards at the Qantas Awards in NZ next week.

We were selected for the Oscar qualifying showcase DocuWeek – seven days of screenings in Los Angeles and New York.

Raindance Film Festival – the largest in the UK has the film hotly tipped for an Oscar Nomination. An Oscar Nomination!!!! Insane. What an idea? What a concept. How crazy and wonderful – just the idea.

Of the hundreds of thousands of people who make film business contributions every year about the world, only a tiny, tiny fraction will ever be publicly credited with doing something worthwhile. Who knew this end of the business of making films would be so complex and so enjoyable. What next for This Way of Life? What next indeed.

moving forward

2010-09-08T11:15:00.001+12:00

One of our two next films is finally moving forward. (and it only took 8 years)
LEONARD'S LOVERS has been selected for pitching during this year's Storyville Vancouver. The pitch Forum takes place on Tuesday, September 28 from 9:30am to 4:15pm at the Vancouver International Film Centre.

Back in the Day

2010-09-08T06:39:00.002+12:00

We get asked all the time if we had any idea the success this little film would have when we were filming it. The answer is no. And yes.
Back in the days when we were filming; visiting with the Karena family, hanging out over a couple of summers, being friends, playing with the kids, marvelling at Colleen’s brilliant parenting and Peters horsemanship we were just part of the ebb and flow of their lives. They did not have a sense of their specialness. No one was trying to promote them selves or play for the camera or be a star. It was just us, the Burstyn whanau and the Karena whanau having fun together. And we just happened to have a camera with us a lot of the time.
All true, but also a little disingenuous on our part. Often we would catch each other nodding quietly in recognition that something special had just happened. We’d set up a more formal interview or catch Colleen folding laundry and that specialness would be there. In the middle of shoeing a horse Pete would say something truly profound.
The spark or whatever you want to call it, the sense that they were some how destined to change peoples lives was obvious to us. They certainly changed our lives. How about yours?
Peter as a young man