James Croot

Caught up with the Architecture & Design Film Festival’s co-curators, Clearly & Co’s Clare Buchanan and Tracey Lee.

We search the globe for striking, thought-provoking films with a brilliant story and a lot of soul. We look to international festivals we respect, the global architecture, design and sustainability network and film-makers we have come to know and follow.

The largest festival is the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR), which features over 100 documentaries, feature films and short films. There is often some artful sleuthing involved in tracking down the film-makers.

And finally, we settle down and watch 100s of hours of films to select the 19 exceptional films to bring to New Zealand audiences. of international companies into their waters.

But led by former locals Todd Saunders and Zita Cobb, the North Atlantic community is attempting We’re recognising an interest in telling sustainability stories – whether that be an encouraging, positive take on how sustainability can have an impact on a community, or a bold foreboding for the destruction and decay people are having on a planet.

Each has its place and we think both sides of the storytelling are important for New Zealanders as our population grows at unprecedented levels and we recognise our once pure resources are (or could become) threatened. The festival began as an Auckland festival and over the past five years we have grown to include Wellington, Dunedin and last year Christchurch.

In another five years, we would love to extend the festival to include a speaker series, tours and – importantly – help kickstart films capturing New Zealand’s architectural stories. to reinvent itself as a destination and haven for contemporary artists, as this intriguing documentary charting its progress shows. Quite possibly because they are such a labour of love. They are made by film-makers who are passionate about their subject; about architects and designers who are committed, bold and visionary and for whom the journey is seldom easy. The stories are at once personal and impact everyone. In the past, we have screened Geoffrey Hawthorn’s and Sam Neill’s two beautiful films on the late Ian Athfield.

This year, we have some wonderful NZIA shorts on Pip Cheshire and Stuart Gardyne, as well as Rowena Baines’ short film

New Zealand has so many fascinating stories.

Funding and return is the biggest issue for film-makers in a small market.

We’d love to see a New Zealand ‘‘patron saint’’ set up the equivalent of Design On-screen to help capture our design history! We can certainly provide a screening platform.

Wastecooking

Coming across like a cross between Morgan Spurlock and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Austrian author and cook David