Jane Campion's pop-up film school is making waves
A few years ago Oscar and Palme d'Or-winning Kiwi filmmaker Dame Jane Campion announced a pop-up film school called 'A Wave in the Ocean'. The project was supported by Netflix and ran as a 12-month intensive mentorship programme for creatives with significant film experience. Well now the course is reaping results - one of the short films that emerged from it has now been selected to compete at the Venice International Film Festival. 'Lion Rock' was co-directed by Prisca Bouchet, she spoke to Jesse.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Coming in from the wilderness
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. At home on the podium. Photo: Supplied Ravel's ballet Daphnis & Chloe is many things: a late romantic masterpiece, a brilliant orchestral and choral score. But for the conductor Jun Märkl, more than anything else, it represents a "wonderful connection with music, Nature and love". Märkl is in New Zealand to conduct Ravel's complete ballet score with the Auckland Philharmonia and the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in a concert marking the 150th year since the composer's birth. The story of Daphnis, a goat herder, and Chloe, a shepherdess, goes back over two thousand years to classical Greece. Basically, they meet, fall in love, but have to overcome all sorts of obstacles (including pirates) to get it together. But also right at home here... Photo: Ignacio Yufera / Biosphoto The love story is a big part of Ravel's richly romantic music, but so too is his evocation of Nature, something conductor Märkl is right in sync with. Märkl spoke with RNZ Concert ahead of his performance with the Auckland Philharmonia, where he told Three to Seven host Bryan Crump that his love of nature goes way beyond its depiction in music. When not directing orchestras in concert halls, Märkl has another life, working as a ranger in national parks, especially in southern Africa. He's spent time learning about animal behaviour, and the circle of life: "who eats whom". "When I'm conducting, I'm always the centre of cities and usually big cities, and so just to refresh myself and my mind I just go places where there are very few, if any, people." It's not that Märkl dislikes people. More that, in getting away from the big city hustle and noise, he finds he likes people - and music - more. "I just go out and do something different which gives me then inspiration for making music again." Born 150 years ago. Photo: Public Domain Written for the remarkable Russian ballet company Ballets Russes, which the impresario Diaghilev brought to Paris in the early 20th century, Daphnis & Chloe is Ravel's longest and richest orchestral work. Ravel asks not just for a very large orchestra, but a large chorus, which doesn't sing any words. Instead, the singers intone vowel sounds. "Which means the chorus doesn't have to worry about learning French," jokes Märkl. As for Ravel's score, there are so many highlights. But one which really sticks in Märkl's mind is Ravel's depiction of a dawn. "I think in my opinion from all sunrises written in music, this is the most starts really from the very dark, and you hear the glittering like the first rays of light on the surface of water, so you can really hear it in the woodwinds and then it rises up and it is so grandiose, very tender and very noble". If you can't make it to the Auckland Town Hall for the gig, you can hear it live on RNZ Concert from 7.30 tonight.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Screentime: The Life of Chuck, Alien: Earth + more NZIFF picks
Photo: IMDb Film and television reviewer James Croot joins Susie to discuss The Life of Chuck (cinemas), based on the novella by Stephen King and starring Tom Hiddleston. Alien: Earth (Disney+) is an upcoming American science fiction horror TV series based on the Alien franchise. And James runs through three more picks from the New Zealand International Film Festival , including Ebony & Ivory , One to One: John Lennon and Late Shift. James Croot is film and television reviewer for Stuff
NZ Herald
20 hours ago
- NZ Herald
The new ‘cool girl' is a comfortable one
The vibe fell somewhere between whipped cream bras (Katy Perry's California Gurls), high-glam power femme (Rihanna's Pour It Up), and hollow-eyed silent beauties (The Weeknd's The Hills). There were exceptions to the rule, for instance, Adele. But even then, in the image-control era of Instagram, the vision remained the same. A highly contoured aesthetic where the expensive visual narrative was everything. Still from the music video of Katy Perry's California Gurls. Some would say that there is no direct connection between the pop stars and my behaviours. Or that I shouldn't have sought out their music (I didn't, it was just out there). We all know many factors influence a person's behaviour, not just who is in the charts or who walks the red carpet. Even so, it's naïve to think the pervasive images we consume, which are still largely created from a patriarchal lens, do not shape our culture. And when we are young, we are especially impressionable. The tide is turning. Women who are rising to fame now are totally unbothered. They come in all shapes and sizes - and the attention is not on their shapes and sizes. The aesthetic is inexpensive and chaotic. Mental health is visible. Beauty is glitchy. They might wear a baggy t-shirt or a tight crop top. It doesn't matter. The point is that it looks like they are dressing for themselves. These women are autonomous over their bodies. These women are comfortable. Lola Young is one of the artists symbolising this shift. I was introduced to the 24-year-old English singer through a content creator on Instagram (@itsme_layla21), who filmed herself dancing clumsily and freely to Young's hit track Messy while driving home. One of the top comments on the post sums up Young's vibe: 'Hell yeah just a woman enjoying her moment; you go girl,' it read. Young, who has spoken openly about her mental health, revealing that she was diagnosed with a rare schizoaffective disorder at 17, also did not grow up rich. 'She is what we call 'common' in the UK - she looks and sounds like the everyday person,' an Englishman at a dinner party tells me. (Although it should be noted, her great-aunt is The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson, and Young did attend the BRIT performing arts school, which counts Adele and Amy Winehouse among its alumni.) Megan Stalter, the star of Lena Dunham's recent Netflix series Too Much, ignites the same flame. The American comedian and actress, who overtly celebrates her aesthetic (in a recent episode on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Stalter wore a T-shirt that read: 'Meg Stalter prettiest girl in America'), is unapologetically herself and drives the men on the show wild. The press has previously been obsessed with the weight of female stars; icons like Kate Winslet and Renee Zellweger bear battle scars. But following Too Much, Stalter's weight is barely a talking point; she is just an irresistible, talented woman. Lorde, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan are also part of this new mainstream aesthetic. The influence of 'Brat Summer', born from Charli's 2024 party pop synth album, and the #MeToo movement, which gained momentum in 2017 after Alyssa Milano tweeted it to show support for survivors of sexual assault, is significant. The former popularised a particular aesthetic of non-linear, lo-fi debauchery, while the latter made feminist issues more accessible to a wider audience. Other celebs are taking notice. 'After a decade of every pop star who blows up having to lose 3 dress sizes and then wear the same glittery f****** leotard or swimsuit on stage, with thigh high boots, we are fatigued ... Women are subconsciously aching for revolution,' wrote English actress and activist Jameela Jamil in a recent Substack article. This new blueprint is exciting. It shows that we are maturing as a society, we are more self-aware, and that the backbones of patriarchy are softer than they were even five years ago. These women project a comfortable version of themselves that nourishes their personal integrity. They are living the truth of their values, which is not only ethical, it is radical.
