Arthouse cinema created for a night out

GWYNETH HYNDMAN

Riverton is joining 13 communities throughout New Zealand to screen arthouse films to small-town audiences this weekend.

The Strength of Water – the first screening by the Riverton Film Society – will open the year on Sunday at the Riverton Community Arts Centre, with doors opening at 6.30pm.

Arts Centre treasurer Bill Jones said the film society planned to screen a film on the last Sunday of each month.

Titles would be chosen from a variety of New Zealand and international movies.

The society will buy the copyright for the movies from the New Zealand Film Society's collection.

The walls of the arts centre would be covered and the space made slightly smaller to give the museum-turned-theatre a more intimate, arthouse feel, Mr Jones said.

He hoped it would bring in Riverton movie-lovers looking for an offbeat cinema experience.

New Zealand Film Society programmer Michael McDonnell said Riverton was an example of the film society's appeal for smaller communities, which sought out alternatives to blockbuster films.

The society had been active for 60 years and had always provided access to films considered to be alternative to mainstream trends, Mr McDonnell said.

The film society had once been taken to court for showing "Soviet" films in Greytown because they were considered politically dangerous.

"I think, for some of these communities, like Tekapo or Waitati, this is an event for the town to go to. A lot of the appeal is that it brings a community together for an evening."

Although the national society was not interested in competing with bigger cinemas, there was a membership cost that covered the copyright of the films, he said.

Most of the 50 films available were from New Zealand, but there was also classic and international films that could be requested during the year.

The Strength of Water was filmed in Hokianga, in the far north of New Zealand, around the settlements of Panguru, Mitimiti and Pawarenga; and at West Auckland's Bethells Beach and Anawhata.

It is the debut feature from award-winning New Zealand director Armagan Ballantyne, and was written by Wellington playwright Briar Grace-Smith.

The story is set in an isolated Maori community, where 10-year-old twins Kimi and Melody live happily until an enigmatic stranger, Tai, arrives, causing an accident that forces the twins apart.

Tai is punished as Kimi reacts to loneliness in destructive, angry ways.

People are asked to bring their own chairs for the screening.

gwyneth.hyndman@stl.co.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News