REVIEW: 'Homegrown: Works on Film'RSS

REVIEW: 'Homegrown: Works on Film'

From 'Amadi'

8th Jul 2010
By Dominic Corry, Flicks.co.nz

4 stars

The Homegrown: Works on Film selection plays at the Auckland Film Festival on Friday July 9th at 6.15pm and on Saturday July 10th at 11.30am, with subsequent screenings as the festival travels throughout the country. Check www.nzff.co.nz for more details.

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Every year at the film festival, the Homegrown: Works on Film programme provides a snapshot of cinematic talent in New Zealand. This year's selection of short films is a typically diverse mixture of light entertainment and heavy drama, with a particularly impressive level of technical expertise shining through – this selection has rarely looked so beautiful.

Music video director Sam Peacocke's Manurewa is an incredibly atmospheric drama based on the hold-up murder of a South Auckland liquor store owner in 2008. Various threads are followed throughout the titular suburb until they meet in an explosion of casual violence. It’s a chillingly effective portrayal of an event that is proving increasingly common.

Katie Wolfe’s Redemption is the follow-up to her successful 2008 short This Is Her and is based on a short story by Phil Kanawa. This exquisitely-photographed film lacks the breezy charm of her earlier short (it's a much darker story), but Wolfe again displays her talent for fleshing out her characters fully in a short amount of time.

A slightly sunnier, though no less affecting, coming-of-age drama plays out in Christopher Dudman’s Choice Night. A teenage rugby player finds his burgeoning romance with a classmate undermined by the blokey expectations of his team mates. Fine lead performances by Aaron Mcgregor and Pearl McGlashan locate this story firmly in the real world.

Zia Mandviwalla’s Amadi is about the minor friendship that develops between a Rwandan refugee struggling with separation from his family and his mentally unstable neighbour. Beyond the pointed contemporary relevance of the story lies an empathetic portrait of two lost souls who help each other, not through any grand gestures but by mere co-existence.

It appears to be director Jason Stutter’s year with the third in this darkly comic crowd-pleasing Careful With… series playing in this programme and his full-length feature Predicament also playing at the festival. Even though we know what to expect from these shorts, Careful with That Crossbow still manages to sustain its delicious tension.

There's more lush photography on display in Dan Salmon's beach-set tale Licked. The oft-disconcerting film follows two resourceful young girls as they attempt to garner some ice cream money. Salmon effectively plays with audience expectations as he takes us through various beautifully-rendered locations.

Watch trailer for Homegrown: Works on Film 2010 More on Homegrown: Works on Film 2010

The people's comments

'Redemption' was the best of the lot and much stronger than this director's previous short, which I never understood the appeal of anyway. This dark, dreamy tale was affecting in tone, texture and emotion with strong performances from the two leads.

This was closely followed by 'Choice Night' which was solid no doubt, in storytelling and performance. The editing also a major highlight. Overall, the film just lacked an edge or point of difference to it in terms of authorship - which was a shame given the subject matter it was dealing with.

'Careful With That Crossbow' was a great bit of fun and a good one to end the program on. Big laughs.

'Amadi' was acceptable, but standard short film fare really and 'Manurewa' while it had its moments, felt confused and morally questionable in its treatment of the real events and people it dealt with. You're also not left wondering so much about any deeper questions, but rather, what was the point ?

'Licked' ... sucked.

By A Kirby