An Evening With Award-Winning New Zealand Director Gaylene Preston
Monday 10 September 2018, 5:21PM
By RedPR
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The woman behind well-known New Zealand films including “Bread and Roses”, “War Stories” and “My Year with Helen”, is speaking at Knox Church in Christchurch on Wednesday 19 September as a suffrage fundraiser.
The Kate Sheppard Memorial Trust (KSMT) has organised the evening as part of Suffrage 125th Anniversary Celebrations, and to announce the Kate Sheppard Memorial Award scholarship recipient for 2018.
KSMT chair, Judith Sutherland, says it is a special privilege to have Ngai Tahu Wahine Toa, Jo Mclean as a special guest, to share aspects of Maori women’s experience of Suffrage, and to have Mayor Lianne Dalziel presenting the KSMT award.
“These three amazing women have achieved so much in their fields and we are very honoured to have them with us on the 19th,” says Judith Sutherland.
Ms Preston will present HERSTORY – (Ms)adventures in Filmland, about her exceptional career over more than three decades making feature films and documentaries with a distinctive New Zealand flavour and a strong social message.
In 2001, she was the first filmmaker to be made a Laureate by the Arts Foundation, recognising her contribution to New Zealand film and television, and in 2014 she also wrote, directed and produced Hope and Wire, a dramatisation of the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
Tickets are available here, are $45 ($25 for unwaged and ‘Friends of KSMT), plus booking fee, and include refreshments. Proceeds from this event will go to the Kate Sheppard Memorial Trust Award which provides opportunities for women to develop their potential through undertaking further education, study, research or training in areas which are of value in the community of New Zealand.
What: An Evening with Gaylene Preston
Where: Knox Church, corner Bealey Ave and Victoria Street
Time: 6.30pm – 9.30pm
Tickets: $25 (unwaged and ‘Friends of KSMT’) and $45 for general public (plus booking fee)
Book at: eventbrite.co.nz
Kate Sheppard Memorial Trust
This Christchurch based organisation provides an award to assist women reach their potential through education, research or a special project that benefits the New Zealand community.
The KSMT Award was created at Suffrage centennial in1993, from surplus money after a group of amazing Christchurch women raised funds for the Kate Sheppard National Memorial in Oxford Terrace.
The current Advisory Committee recognises the need to add to the Trust’s capital funds in order to continue to uphold the legacy of the Kate Sheppard name and what she represents to all women.
"I believe that the basic responsibility of New Zealand filmmakers is to make films principally for the New Zealand audience. If we don't, no-one else will." Gaylene Preston
Mr Wrong * Ruby and Rata * Bread & Roses * War Stories * Perfect Strangers * Lovely Rita * Home by Christmas * Hope and Wire *My Year With Helen
Gaylene Preston is a national treasure, with an exceptional career over more than three decades. An innovative writer, director, and producer, Gaylene has insisted that it is possible to live in New Zealand and contribute New Zealand stories to global cinema, and her award-winning work has screened extensively at international festivals including Venice, Sundance, Toronto, London, Fantasporto, Chicago, San Francisco, Munich, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Brighton, Athena NY and New Zealand.
Gaylene has served on most industry boards including the New Zealand Film Commission and New Zealand On Air, and has chaired Creative New Zealand's Film Innovation Fund and the New Zealand Film and Television Awards Society. At the same **time, as evidenced in her executive producer credits of many AWARD WINNING films, including Annie Goldson's Punitive Damage, Brita McVeigh's Coffee, Tea or Me? Michelle Savill's Ellen is Leaving and Paora Joseph's Tatarakihi - The Children of Parihaka, her generosity of spirit and her powerful mentorship and advocacy skills have been central to the development of New Zealand's contemporary filmmaking community.
In 2001 Gaylene was the first filmmaker to receive an Arts Foundation Laureate Award and in 2002 she was made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit for services to the film industry. In 2010 she received the inaugural lifetime achievement award for outstanding contribution to documentary from Documentary Edge. She also received a Screenwriters Mentorship Award and a WIFT NZ Award for outstanding contribution to the New Zealand Screen Industry. In 2016 she was awarded the SPADA Industry Champion Award and a NZ Women of Influence Award for Arts & Culture and in 2017 she was given the Premium Moa Award for services to cinema and the Lia Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tasmanian Stranger with My Face Film Festival. This year (2018), she will take up a prestigious Visiting Scholar position at The Intellectual Hub at Jesus College, Cambridge UK.
Preston's feature film Home by Christmas won audience accolades at Sydney and London Film Festivals, and won High Commendation at the Asia Pacific Awards for the actor Tony Barry who also won Best Actor at the Qantas New Zealand Film Awards. Home by Christmas was a finalist for Best Drama in the World History Makers Awards 2011 in New York.
In 2014, her 6-hour mini-series Hope and Wire aired on TV3. A drama set during aftermath of 2010/11 earthquakes Christchurch New Zealand. Starring British actor, Bernard Hill and a stellar ensemble cast of New Zealand actors including Rachel House (a fellow Arts Foundation Laureate).
For many years, Gaylene had been interested in making a Helen Clark documentary, and the possibility that Helen could become UN Secretary-General made 2016 the perfect time. Preston has known Clark since they met when New Zealand was leading the world in the 1980s by becoming nuclear free.
“I have witnessed Helen break down barriers as she’s gone from MP to Cabinet Minister, to New Zealand’s first elected female Prime Minister, and then the first woman to lead the UN Development Group. Helen is a formidable woman and leader, and I am privileged she gave my team access to tell this story.”
My Year With Helen is the documentary that came out of Gaylene Preston’s cameras following as Helen Clark campaign for Secretary-General while also carrying out her work as Administrator of UNDP, filming Clark in Botswana, Britain, Spain and Ukraine as well as the UN’s New York headquarters. Released in 2017, My Year With Helen gives a closely observed view of Helen’s bid for the top job, as the UN turns itself inside out in an effort to deliver unprecedented transparency in an historic year.
My Year With Helen had its International Premiere at the prestigious Athena Film Festival in New York in February 2018 and is currently touring internationally in a series of special screenings attended by Helen Clark and Gaylene for Q&A sessions in places including Geneva, Maastricht, San Francisco, Palo Alto, London, Washington DC, Berlin and many more.
The New Zealand Film Archive holds viewing copies of many of Gaylene's films as well as a collection of material that has been written about her. Anyone wanting access to this material should contact Archive staff. For more information visit Gaylene's website.