Dame Gaylene Preston’s tales of growing up in Napier

Dame Gaylene Preston, the former Colenso High School pupil who became a famed filmmaker and storyteller, returns to Hawke's Bay on Saturday to tell tales of growing up in Napier. Photo / Supplied

Acclaimed Napier-raised filmmaker and storyteller Dame Gaylene Preston is returning to the city during the weekend for a speaking engagement in the wake of the publishing of her memoir.

The book Gaylene’s Take was published on November 10, and the former pupil of Nelson Park, Napier Intermediate and Colenso High schools will be back to tell a few tales and see old friends in a public appearance in the Century Theatre on Saturday, from 3pm.

Cousin and Napier city councillor Maxine Boag, who will make the introductions, expects it to be a laid-back affair, with Preston reading part of the memoir relating to growing up in Napier, to where she moved with her parents when she was 10, with the family home in McVay St, with McLean Park as the backyard.

She will also answer questions from the auditorium.

Now 75, she has made numerous returns to Napier, one notably to the Century Theatre in 2010 for a special screening of then-new film Home by Christmas, to help raise funds for a new performing arts centre at her old high school, now known as William Colenso College.

In the 2002 New Year Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to filmmaking, in 2016, she received the New Zealand Women of Influence Award for Arts and Culture in recognition of her work on New Zealand-focused films and documentaries, and in the 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to film.

As well as Home by Christmas, her portfolio of films includes popular classics of New Zealand cinema such as Mr Wrong, Ruby and Rata, War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us, and My Year With Helen, a 2017 documentary on former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

She also produced the documentary Earthquake Survivors, commemorating the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake and Napier’s MTG’s earthquake exhibit.

Preston is also one of New Zealand’s most distinctive storytellers, and in her memoir brings the compassion, humour, irreverence and heart that her films are known for to the page, say the publicists.

Younger sister and renowned songwriter Jan Preston also attended William Colenso College, and the sisters collaborated on then musical scores for Home by Christmas and My Year with Helen.