City through another pair of eyes
Through a hand-held lens, Martin Sagadin invites you behind the scenes of his life.
A member of the new breed of film director, his latest film Oko Na Roki , or The Eye In My Hand, was shot almost entirely on his phone.
‘‘It charts my day-to-day life, and in a lot of ways it’s like looking through someone else’s photo album,’’ Sagadin said.
The film is premiering at the New Zealand International Film Festival, which opens on August 2. The full programme of Christchurch films is to be released at midday today.
Sagadin moved from Slovenia to Christchurch with his family in 2005. Now 27, the freelance writer and director has completed a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury and taught in the same course. He has directed numerous short films, as well as music videos for Pickle Darling, Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams.
Oko Na Roki is an ‘‘intimate’’ view into Sagadin’s life over four years. Sporadically and with no intention, he began capturing footage around Christchurch, eventually compiling it into a film as part of his Masters thesis.
The final product is a film with no words, exploring well-known parts of Christchurch through another pair of eyes. Viewers are let into Sagadin’s life through his friends, his home, even his grandparents.
He said the film was composed ‘‘in the same way your memory would naturally put things together when you look back at your life’’.
‘‘There is nothing in it that is pre-planned, not a single shot that I planned or set out to shoot – it’s all on the go, in the moment, as it happened,’’ he said.
‘‘I wasn’t compelled to film so much in specific locations, but more at a particular kind of light or a time of day, so it was more wherever I found myself at that time.’’
Now Oko Na Roki is finished, his focus is back on long-term project and script-driven feature film Maria Take A Bow, which has received funding from the New Zealand Film Commission. It is an examination of young people struggling with post-university ennui and poverty in the suburbs of Christchurch.
‘‘We’ll hopefully shoot next winter, and then about another half a year after that it might be released. So not next film festival, but the one after that, people will be able to see that,’’ he said.