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Writer's pictureAmanda Riddell

Film Commission drama

I'm getting the very distinct sense that people think that I should be grateful that the NZ Film Commission wants to meet with me, even though the project that they wanted me to pitch was something that I'd said I wouldn't do.


I mean, I'm sorry, but aren't you familiar with the words cease and desist? - I think their actions were a lot of bullshit, and totally turned me off from pitching again. Put another way, it shouldn't have been fair for them to use the wānanga as a pawn. I've called out VUW for doing that as well, so don't say that I'm singling out Ainsley.


You know, you could always meet me at Parliament... - Plus, this is whole 'oh, now that we've seen your childhood photos, we realise that you were really serious about that Italian movie' is a load of shit. While having reference material is an obvious boon for production, it doesn't really solve the problem of scripting it. Right now I'm going for a stroll through memory lane, and it's not really a goal of mine to wrap up that script in 6 months or a year. That's something I want to do when I'm older and more mature. It'd cost a few million, and that's not something they're going to give me based on my cannabis documentary. - Like, I realise that I have acquaintances who are writers and work for the NZFC, but I'm fairly convinced that going through script development with them would result in a boring movie that hews closely to whatever template that they have in mind. Plus, how many of them have written a script for a feature that got produced? I'd rather not have producer's notes if the notes are that 'this sucks, do it our way.'

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1 Comment


Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
Oct 16

As always, we need a wider variety of funding options. Perhaps we could do something where production companies bid for a certain amount of the allocated funding, and then they seek out a project that suits them. I mean, no matter what you do in script development, you need a name-brand producer to get any film made with the NZFC. Given that they clearly believe in producers over writers, why not just drop the charade and have them bid with each other directly?

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