Local film-makers make short work of it

By MARGIE THOMSON

They're typically quirky - dark, with an extra twist of black humour to finish. No one else makes films quite like them, and international audiences are loving New Zealand's short films quite disproportionately. Of 3000 short films offered to international festivals each year only 200 are accepted, and of those about 5 per cent are usually Kiwi.

At best, short films are succinct gems: a story with depth and a soundtrack, wrapped up in just a few minutes. Often, they are made by ambitious people who want to move from small to big. Director Robin Walters is one such and, with a Silver Spike Award for his film Platform from last year's Spanish Valladolid Film Festival on his mantelpiece, his trajectory is looking sharp.

It began in the 1980s, when Walters was 20 and heading for London with nothing but talent and cheek. The photographers he called cold, having found their names in Vogue, were surprisingly receptive to his "gizza job". At 23, he made his first commercial and never looked back. But advertising is advertising. "No matter how many helicopters you have, it's just soap powder," Walters says.

Then along came Once Were Warriors, made by another advertising crossover, Lee Tamahori, and Walters started to think there might be more creative opportunities at home in New Zealand. There were indeed, especially for a young Maori director. "You'll be wanting to tell the stories of your people," he was told - but Walters had his own stories to tell.

Over the next couple of years the Film Commission sent him around 200 scripts - he sent them all back, unsatisfied. Then came Platform, a one-page script by Brett Ihaka, who he later discovered was his cousin. "It had the perfect structure, a beginning, a middle and an end - and a black humour which appealed to me."

The Film Commission funds about nine short films a year. Walters received $70,000 to make Platform.

When he got the phone call about Valladolid, Walters didn't fully appreciate the news.

"Oh, okay, sweet," he said casually.

Even more extraordinary, film-maker Michael Bennett had his film Cow selected at the same time, so two out of 12 spots were taken by New Zealanders.

Valladolid is an A-list festival, along with Cannes and Sundance, so after that success Platform was accepted at 15 other festivals around the world, winning several audience awards. Since then, Walters has been back looking at scripts. He made a 30-minute drama, Maketu, for South Pacific Pictures for the experience of working with a longer script, but he is now trying to develop some feature-film ideas.

Walters, Bennett and friends have organised the second annual Local Shorts. This year the lineup includes Platform and Valladolid Golden Spike winner and Academy Award finalist The Copy Shop by Austrian director Virgil Widrich; Academy Awards nominee Das Rad by German Chris Stenner and Heidi Wittlinger; Desserts by British director Jeff Stark; Camping with Camus by New Zealand director Alan Erson, and Tick by New Zealander Rebecca Hobbs, which opened the New York Film Festival last year.

It's an outside, bring-a-cushion event at Richmond Rd School, Ponsonby, with a giant screen, licensed bar, coffee and food.

Screening

* What: Local Shorts Outdoors

* Where: Richmond Rd School

* When: Saturday, 8pm

* What: Kidz Shorts

* Where: Richmond Rd School

* When: Friday 7pm