Repeat screening of Hodgkins doco

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Due to popular demand, Frances Hodgkins, Anything but a Still Life will have an encore screening at The Dome Cinema on Sunday at 6.30pm.

Director Blandine Massiet du Biest, who was in Gisborne for the first screening, was thrilled to get a full house and loved experiencing the unique Dome Cinema for herself.

Massiet du Biest started the documentary project while working closely with Auckland Art Gallery curator Mary Kisler who wrote the book Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys. She began filming in Paris while Kisler was researching the book there. Their European research trip followed the 2019 Auckland Art Gallery retrospective of Hodgkins’ work.

It wasn’t until the documentary was accepted into the DocEdge festival that Massiet du Biest got the finishing funding from the New Zealand Film Commission which allowed her to pay for the colour grading, sound mixing and composition of the music by Dana Lund. She went on to win Best New Zealand Emerging Filmmaker at the DocEdge film festival in 2023 and Best New Zealand Sound.

“Getting the funding was huge — it allowed me to do the post-production it needed to make it look and sound so good in cinemas,” says Massiet du Biest.

“Editing is my craft but I did everything on this film — filming, editing, producing and distributing it.”

Massiet du Biest admires Hodgkins for her self-confidence and determination.

“She had a hard life but she never gave up and I love that about her.

“She was quite colourful, witty, extremely open-minded and experimental.”

The fact most of her career happened outside of New Zealand at a time women artists were not widely recognised sets her apart.

The film is essentially a talking-head doco, with erudite interviewees such as curator Mary Kisler, Hodgkins biographer Joanne Drayton and University of Auckland art historian Linda Tyler.

Massiet du Biest also includes interviews with creatives such as Kate Sylvester and Star Gossage. The documentary is made beautiful through the use of archive photos and Hodgkins paintings.

■ Frances Hodgkins, Anything but a Still Life,  Sunday 6.30pm Dome Cinema