Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

114
make sense of it as “punk” filmmaking!) 389 As White points out, it was very difficult to
find a film “to complement something with the impact of A State of Siege”. The length
also presented problems for television sales, but since it was the filmmakers’ primary
aim to make a film for the cinema with its greater scope for mood and visual subtlety,
White did not imagine it would “stand up successfully on the ‘small screen’”. 390
There was however, the potential for having the film distributed at international film
festivals, and fortunately for White and Ward, Professor Albert Johnson, the noted
American film critic and one of the organizers of the San Francisco Film Festival, saw a
preview of the film while it was in the laboratory at the National Film Unit. He wrote to
several film festival directors, recommending the film for inclusion in the San
Francisco, Chicago, New York, London and Berlin Film Festivals. Johnson was
visiting New Zealand as a guest of the local film festival and had been alerted to the
artistic qualities of this film; but his reaction was even more enthusiastic than anyone
had expected. His presence in New Zealand and ability to recognize new talent were a
lucky accident that gave the film unexpected international exposure. A Professor at the
University of California at Berkeley and former editor of Film Quarterly, Johnson was
an influential figure in the American festival circuit. Locally, the film premiered at the
Wellington Film Festival on 15 July 1978, and was then given cinematic release in
Wellington (at the Paramount), Auckland (at the Classic), Christchurch (at the
Academy) and Dunedin. The film was purchased by the National Film Library, and
despite White’s reservations, was eventually screened on television, on TV1 on 14
October 1979. 391 Overseas, it was distributed by an American company, Bauer
International Pictures, and screened with In Spring One Plants Alone at repertory
theatres in various parts of the USA. A State of Siege was included in the Chicago Film
Festival in 1978, where it won the Golden Hugo Award for the best student film, and at
the Miami Film Festival, where it was awarded the Gold Medal Special Jury Prize. In
1980, it was screened in the New Directors section of the San Francisco Film Festival.
On the basis of this examination of the process of making the film, it is evident that
White was a key collaborator in some respects, and shares equal credit with Ward for
the film’s overall success. Significantly, the end credits for the film list Ward as
389 Martin and Edwards, New Zealand Film 1912-1996 67.
390 White, "Production of a Film Drama," 18.
391 Horrocks, Vincent Ward: The New Zealand Film Makers at the Auckland City Art Gallery Series.