By GRAHAM REID
Bill Gosden spends most of his life in darkened rooms. As the longtime director of the International Film Festival, now in its 36th year in Auckland, Gosden has travelled the world to sit in cinemas.
It has been 20 years since he first programmed the Auckland film festival. So we need to know ...
Have you ever had a proper job?
That sounds like the kind of question I'm used to hearing from relatives. No, this is absolutely a fulltime job, and has been for a very long time.
How has it been this year, because there seemed some alarmist talk before it started that numbers would be down - then last week that it was looking like the best ever?
The alarming talk was based on our experience last year, when the attendance was way down, and we received a lot of criticism from people who said the programme was too big and that Auckland didn't need a festival any more because the best films always come back. We had a very discouraging year last year after a very good one the year before.
But this year we are looking very good because we surpassed our previous best attendance on Tuesday night, so it's already a record-breaker. I think having the Michael Moore film [Fahrenheit 9/11] on the programme gave us a lot of instant credibility, and the fact we were announcing a programme that contained films people were already hanging out to see could only be helpful.
What sort of numbers have you had through?
By the end of Tuesday night we'd sold 92,000 tickets, and that included the advance for the remainder of the festival. Advance purchases this year have been better than ever and the walk-up has been correspondingly less.
Has it made any difference having the Incredible Film Festival programme now incorporated?
I'm sure it has, because now it means the focus is much more squarely upon us and we are not having to share the limelight with another event.
Looking back to those first few years when you were involved, just in terms of the kinds of films you were scheduling, what sort of films were they? Fewer docos?
No, not the case actually. For example, those epic Marcel Ophuls documentaries like Hotel Terminus [about Nazi Klaus Barbie] and films like that - I remember them as highlights of early festivals I was associated with. We always screened the Les Blank films, he was the first festival guest I was ever involved with, his wonderful Burden of Dreams [about the making of Herzog's Fitzcarraldo]. The festival's association with documentaries precedes me.
The two things which are most different are that we're screening a lot more films, and they are much newer. In the early days we were screening films which were three and four years old, that's how long they took to get here. Now we're screening films which are a couple of months old.
What trends have you observed over the past decade or so, a bigger industry in Asia?
Yes, and tastes have expanded. Twenty years ago there were just a few recognised Asian arthouse directors. Now audiences embrace a lot of Asian genre films. The same with Bollywood. There's a much bigger audience for international popular cinema - it's not just arthouse niche any more.
Do you actually see every film in the festival or do you rely on people like programmers Michael McDonnell and Sandra Reid increasingly?
No, I don't. Sandra has probably seen more than I have, she's seen all the Cannes movies for example. Part of the pleasure of the festival is that when the opportunity arises I can race off and see one of the newer titles I haven't seen.
So you go to the movies when you're not going to the movies?
Yeah, I do every now and again. I went to Tropical Malady a couple of days ago, which I enjoyed.
You have to travel extensively?
I still travel a bit and will probably go to the Toronto and Vancouver film festivals in September, although I haven't booked a ticket yet. But Sandra, being based in Paris, gets to go to a lot of the European festivals.
Have you scheduled films which seem to play well when you see them overseas but just don't quite have the same resonance when you see them in this environment?
Yeah, it's not so much the resonance, all of us are reasonably good at picking that up. It's a matter of getting people to the films in the first place. One of the big disappointments this year has been Any Way The Wind Blows, which we think is a terrific movie which a young New Zealand audience would react to - but we just didn't succeed in getting them there. Somehow we failed to target them.
Part of the problem is that audience isn't necessarily looking to the festival when they are choosing their options for a Monday night. We need to work on that more.
New Zealand films? Why so glum?
Every now and then there's a New Zealand film that makes me laugh, and Kaikohe Demolition, even though it's a doco, is in that category. There are probably more laughs in the documentaries than there are in the features this year. Then again, In My Father's Den may be grim but I think it's a magnificent film.
Have you seen Shrek 2 or the new Spider-Man?
No I haven't, but I'm not averse to those films at all. It's just that I'm far too busy at this time of year so I'm more likely to see films of that nature in the summer. Our office is in the Embassy Theatre so I've heard the soundtrack of Spider-Man 2 four times a day for the past three weeks.
Finally, read any good books lately?
Gosh, what's the last good book I read? I haven't lately, just a lot of film reviews. I read that amazing book about Paul Keating - it's embarrassing to have forgotten the name of the writer - but that was the last big book I read. That was around Easter. Movies take time, you know.
New Zealand International Film Festival
Still watching after all those movies
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