Monday 19th March - Whistle-stop tour of New Zealand

Phew, well that was a whistle-stop…New Zealand done and dusted.


At least on this trip (unlike my previous two) I got to see a little bit more than Auckland and Wellington. Straight from the plane to the first screening of Haydn and then pretty much non-stop for the next 3 days. I drove about two hours out of Auckland for a couple of small-town screenings. They have a lot of hundred-year-old cinemas that have to work hard to survive and often choose the option of dividing the cinema from one screen to 5 or 6. It’s obviously not as attractive but makes much more sense and offer far more choice to the local community. They obviously have a great love of movies – often the cinemas have dozens and dozens of old posters up – and they have to hope they continue to get good ones to drag people in from the street or away from their TVs.

I was lucky to have a lot of sun and both the towns and countryside were lovely but that didnt lend itself to getting massive crowds. Mind you, I can see why families get in their camper vans and take off. I’d always thought NZ was supposed to be very English – old-style England – but I didn’t really sense that. It seemed to have a sense of itself – not a pastiche of the UK or Australia. As for the screenings, well I conclude that neither I nor my distributor had done enough to publicise them. I’ve been endlessly hustling and emailing for six months but it still wasn’t enough. One or two key press interviewers weren’t contacted, no social media really happened to music groups, etc and there were one or two NZ acquaintances that I simply didn’t get time to contact. I did at least manage a short walk talking to a Kiwi telling me about local history and the Maori. Notably too, everyone half-jokes and half-worries that they are sitting on big volcanoes…..

Back to work, and half-full cinemas again…though the reaction was very strong and positive. Lots of people saying they are going to tell their friends – let’s see. You really can’t be half-hearted about putting a film in the cinema – it’s full on. The last night in Auckland we had a double-feature of The Boy who Plays and The Boy Mir. That was very well attended and the cinema decided on the spot to keep the Boy Mir film on for at least a week. We’ll actually open it across the country though in mid-May. That’s when we’ll target the press for.

Anyway, time flew…I have no idea what’s happening in the world although I did manage (via Skype and my wife’s iPad) to have dinner with my family and parents (on Mother’s day in the UK). I’m not sure my 90-year-old ma has ever talked to anyone over Skype before – my, the world has moved on.

And talking of moving on…I’m now on a plane for a 13-hour flight to Los Angeles.