August 28th, 2014
Hope and Wire, Gaylene Preston’s drama set in post-earthquake Christchurch, has been announced as an official selection at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it will screen in the Festival on October 5 and 6. This will be followed by a screening of the entire Hope and Wire television series at the Vancouver Film Centre on October 19.
Preston, who directed, wrote and produced (with Chris Hampson) the series, will be attending both Festival screenings. She has also been invited to sit on the VIFF jury selecting the best Canadian feature film.
VIFF artistic director, Alan Franey, said: “Hope and Wire is an unprecedented and truly extraordinary screen-event directed by the renowned New Zealand filmmaker Gaylene Preston. Utilizing a mix of dramatic staging, found footage and documentary elements, it captures a complex and extraordinary situation vividly and humanely.”
Preston said “Hope and Wire was conceived as a postcard from Christchurch to Auckland to illuminate the grinding and ongoing psychological and social disruption in the wake of a huge upheaval. It is gratifying that Vancouver audiences will, as the Festival Programme points out, have the opportunity to discover what life can be like in such a situation from the safety of a darkened cinema.”
Preston has a long-standing relationship with the Vancouver International Film Festival: “Since Ruby and Rata screened there, my films have found a warm and appreciative audience at VIFF. It’s great that the Festival is going to honour Hope and Wire in the same way.”
She was in Vancouver earlier this year as the mentor director at the Canadian Creative Women’s Workshops: Women In The Director’s Chair programme.
She will also be featuring on a panel titled “Tough Stuff” at WORD Christchurch Readers and Writers Festival this weekend, alongside writers Rebecca McFie and Lloyd Jones, discussing ‘writing on difficult subjects’ with Finlay Macdonald.
Hope and Wire: Production Company: Gaylene Preston Productions. Funded by: NZ On Air Platinum Fund. Broadcaster: TV3