Well, I wish my brother was here to double-check all this, but these are my opinions. I genuinely believe the future of arts involves private investment too, though I've largely pushed about state funding for this election.
My belief is that the state funding would enable private companies to become profitable, and that's where the real future of NZ film would come from.
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The key to this is simple: cheaper films with smaller crews, and demanding greater accountability from the NZ Film Commission.
Our domestic box office is large enough to include our movies becoming profitable on a regular basis, yet simply put there is a vast gulf between the audience and the administrators regarding what a 'good film' is.
Plus tiny marketing budgets for local films that struggle to compete with the staggering budgets of US movies. I mean, yes it's great that the Greens used the Barbie movie to drive their vote, but what if they'd used an NZ movie? 😎
This is why I introduced my 'four-wall NZ films for a full month' policy. 👋
I'm not saying massive profits, but a 20% profit on a $1 million film would be $200,000 and that could easily fund another movie. If they don't want this accountability, then they should stop structuring their funds as loans to production companies.
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Yes, this isn't left-wing policy. Film isn't a left-wing business, though the whole idea from a social justice perspective is that profitable blockbusters should fund more adventurous fare.
That's how Hollywood used to work, and that's usually my benchmark.
The other elephant in the room is the NZ Film Festival. To use an example from where I was in the room: Housebound played amazingly well to the Welly film festival crowd, then Steve Barr gave my brother a lecture on how useless it performed at the domestic box office: 'NZers don't like horror movies' or something like that was what he said. I'm yet to have a film at the festival, though not for lack of trying (the Dakumentary was ineligible, and they rejected Portrait of a Knight). But yes, the small crowd of faithful NZ film fans sees the movies at the festival and presumes that's all there is, despite the small, pathetic screenings that dozens of NZ films…