New Zealand Film - An illustrated history

Our love affair with movies film by film, page by page

Aotearoa New Zealand has always had a soft spot for the silver screen. 

Moving pictures were first screened here in 1896 to a curious and captivated audience and we’ve loved watching them, and making them, ever since.

Now for the first time the full story of this country’s history with film is recorded in a book that all Kiwi movie buffs will want to get their hands on. And what a gorgeous big handsome book it is too.

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History, edited by Diane Pivac, Frank Stark and Lawrence McDonald and published by Te Papa Press, went on sale July 1 and can be found in all good bookstores.

It is published in association  with the New Zealand Film Archive Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua which marks its 30th anniversary this year.

It sets a course through New Zealand’s history in film, starting when Professors Hausmann and Gow introduced “Edison's latest marvel, the Kinematograph” as part of a vaudeville programme of short films; through the hokey-pokey era of gritty kiwiana classics like Goodbye Pork Pie and Smash Palace; and into the flash modern era when Wellington has become synonymous with cutting edge digital cinema technology.

Featuring many previously unseen images and unheard anecdotes, the book chronicles the journey through 11 chapters, featuring 25 essays penned by some of our most respected writers, film makers, industry insiders and fans - including a foreword by one of the biggest fans of New Zealand cinema, Sir Ian McKellen.

It is a comprehensive celebration of more than a century’s worth of local film ranging from the first cinema screenings and magic lantern shows of the 19th century through the determined development of an industry infrastructure and the establishment of the Film Societies and Film Festivals in the mid-20th century, to the many ingenious technical innovations and the post-Jackson Effect professionalism of the present day.

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History comes with a DVD of some of the most noteworthy films in our history. It is being launched at events in Auckland and Wellington in early July and  is available from bookstores nationwide.

New Zealand Film: An Illustrated History edited by Diane Pivac, with Frank Stark and Lawrence McDonald, Te Papa Press, July 2011 

RRP NZ$85.00

ISBN: 978-1-877385-66-7

Contributors to the book include: Bruce Babington, Virginia Callanan, Bruce Connew, Sarah Davy, Kathy Dudding, Sir David Gascoigne, Matthew Grainger, Ann Hardy, Roger Horrocks, Geoff Lealand, Aaron Lister, Lawrence McDonald, Jane Paul, Geraldene Peters, Diane Pivac, Christopher Pugsley, Dame Anne Salmond, Lindsay Shelton, Waihoroi Shortland, Monty Soutar, Clive Sowry, Frank Stark, Tainui Stephens, Lawrence Wharerau. 

Chapter headings:

1. The Magic Of Moving Pictures: Film Making 1895–1918

2. The Rise Of Fiction: Between The Wars

3. Non-Fiction Films: Between The Wars

4. Political And Alternative Film Making: From The Second World War To 1950

5. From Holland To Holyoake: Film In The 1950s And 1960s

6. Waking From A Fretful Sleep: Film In The 1970s

7. Boom Times: The Early 1980s

8. After The Boom: The Second Half Of The 1980s

9. New Currents In The Mainstream: The 1990s

10. The ‘Jackson Effect’: The Late 1990s To 2005

11. Into The Blue: Film Making In The Early Twenty-First Century