Filmmaker Gerard Smyth turns his camera on Alun Bollinger whose own camera has been informing the way we New Zealanders see ourselves for almost 40 years. Geoff Murphy's Goodbye Pork Pie, Vincent Ward's Vigil, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and Gaylene Preston's Perfect Strangers, amongst his many credits, are superbly photographed films by any standard and each of them carries the distinctive signature of its director.Filmmaker Gerard Smyth turns his camera on Alun Bollinger whose own camera has been informing the way we New Zealanders see ourselves for almost 40 years. Geoff Murphy's Goodbye Pork Pie, Vincent Ward's Vigil, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and Gaylene Preston's Perfect Strangers, amongst his many credits, are superbly photographed films by any standard and each of them carries the distinctive signature of its director.All four auteurs express their admiration here and impart some flavour of the crucial collaborations involved, starting with the difficulty of ever luring the man they all call AlBol away from his South Island West Coast home.

AlBol meanwhile discusses creativity as if it's a mere matter of practicality enlivened by the occasional flash of ingenuity. Smyth's portrait of the artist as unassuming alt-lifestyle Kiwi bloke is also a valentine to the four decades of marriage that began after AlBol and Helen - HelBol - had known each other exactly three days. Existing admirers should be delighted by Smyth's tribute, and the unfamiliar captivated. €” Bill Gosden

Barefoot Cinema: The Life and Art of Cinematographer Alun Bolinger

Director: Gerard Smyth
Year: 2008
Running time: 74 mins
New Zealand
Producers: Gerard Smyth, Alice Shannon
Commissioned by TVNZ
Photography: Jake Bryant, Wayne Vinten, John Chrisstoffels
Editor: Gaylene Barnes
Research: Nadia Maxwell, Helen Smyth
Sound: Tim Brott, Hammond Peek, Brian Shennan, Benoit Hardonniere
DigiBeta

Gerard Smyth lives in Christchurch where he has been working in various capacities on documentary production for over 30 years. He is a second generation meddler in film - his family before him worked as television directors, actors and media commentators.

In 1985 in Ethiopia, he filmed an aid response to the North African famine One Day for Africa. In 1995 he won the London Based CEVMA Best Documentary Award for Sonya Talking, his tale about the last days of a young woman with cancer. He spent a year documenting the lives of the residents of a home for the intellectually disabled, which resulted in Out of Sight and screened in our Festivals in 1997.

A common thread in Gerard's work is the life of the outsider. Barefoot Cinema wanders down the same road.

Barefoot Cinema: The Art and Life of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger

Sunday, 20-Jul-08, 4:15 PM, TE PAPA, WELLINGTON

Monday, 21-Jul-08, 4:15 PM, FILM ARCHIVE, WELLINGTON

Sunday, 27-Jul-08, 2:00 PM, SKYCITY, AUCKLAND

Monday, 04-Aug-08, 8:15 PM, RIALTO, DUNEDIN

Thursday, 14-Aug-08, 6:15 PM, RIALTO 2, CHRISTCHURCH

Friday, 15-Aug-08, 12:00 PM, RIALTO 2, CHRISTCHURCH

See the trailer

31/07/08