Doc Edge pulls through for local film talent
New Zealand film-makers and fans alike will still get the chance to see local and international film talent, as New Zealand’s Oscarqualifying Doc Edge festival moves online.
Wellington producer and director Sally Williams is premiering her film Stevenson – Lost and Found at this year’s festival, which opens on June 12. The film’s first run was scheduled in the United States earlier this year, but after the festivals were cancelled because of Covid-19, the team had six months of scrambling to figure out what to do.
‘‘The Doc Edge team were quick, they were definitive, they made film-makers understand we can trust what they’re doing,’’ Williams said. ‘‘What they’ve achieved in such a short time, and what they’re offered us film-makers is really . . . a world-leading achievement.’’
Stevenson – Lost and Found is the story of one of the most prolific cartoonists in history, the New Yorker’s James Stevenson, whom Williams met on her OE. ‘‘As part of my world experience I was shovelling horse s… in New Jersey, when James Stevenson walked into my barn and we started talking.’’
They remained friends, and after she began working in television she talked him into making a film about his life. They began in 2014, and Stevenson died in 2017 with dementia, part way through the film’s creation.
‘‘You don’t get to ask more questions, what you’ve done is what you have to make it work.’’
Luckily they had a lot of content by then, and the film, far from being doom-and-gloom, was a ‘‘balm for the times’’, Williams said.
Usually it was ‘‘really nice to get in front of audiences and experience their response, and be in a cinema setting. We have so many small screens in our lives.
‘‘So that’s a loss and I look forward to when that comes back.’’
Making the films available anywhere in the country was ‘‘a real strength of this year’s festival’’.
Festival director Dan Shanan said as soon as Covid-19 hit, they looked for alternative platforms.
‘‘We were watching festival after festival being cancelled or postponed,’’ Shanan said. ‘‘It was devastating for us to see that.’’
They partnered with telecommunications company Chorus, which was making more than 20 short films freely available, and subsiding tickets to $11.
Screenings would be scheduled, available to watch for 36 hours, and followed by a live Q and A with the creators after the first screening.
The Q and A was the best part for Williams. ‘‘I hope people embrace it and show the Doc Edge folks that this works.’’