The hunt is on in New Zealand and Australia to find a 35mm print of Vincent Ward's feature film What Dreams May Come. Universal Film Studios confirmed this week that their only copies of the film were destroyed in the June 1st store house fire.

What Dreams May Come is scheduled to screen as part of a retrospective of Ward's work at the Era New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland from the 17 - 27 July. Ward will attend the festival as their guest of honour. Unable to find any print copies of the film in the US and Europe, the festival is now urgently seeking a replacement in NZ and Australia. The hunt is on in New Zealand and Australia to find a 35mm print of Vincent Ward's feature film What Dreams May Come. Universal Film Studios confirmed this week that their only copies of the film were destroyed in the June 1st store house fire.

What Dreams May Come is scheduled to screen as part of a retrospective of Ward's work at the Era New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland from the 17 - 27 July. Ward will attend the festival as their guest of honour. Unable to find any print copies of the film in the US and Europe, the festival is now urgently seeking a replacement in NZ and Australia.Produced in 1999 and starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jnr and Max von Sydow, the film was a box office success and received two Academy Award nominations, winning the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

If you can help find a print of What Dreams May Come, please contact Joanna Lapinska, Artistic Director, Era New Horisons IFF, joanna@snh.org.pl.

Vincent Ward background

Ward began writing and directing films at 18. In 1978-1981 fresh out of art school he made the documentary In Spring One Plants Alone, which won the Grand Prix at Cinema du Reel (Paris), and a Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival. In Spring One Plants Alone provides the starting-point for his new feature Rain of the Children - which will have its New Zealand premiere in the Auckland Film Festival at Civic Theatre in July.

In Spring One Plants Alone was about the day-to-day life of 80-year-old Puhi who lived in a remote part of Tūhoe country in the Urewera Ranges looking after her 40-year-old son Niki, who had schizophrenia. Ward lived with Puhi for 18 months and during this time became her "mokopuna ma", her white grandson.

Ward was awarded an Order of New Zealand Merit in 2007 for his contribution to film making. He was born in Greytown, New Zealand. He was trained as an artist at the University of Canterbury. He has earned international acclaim with a reputation for making films with a unique, deeply human vision.

Since his debut feature Vigil (1984), Ward's films have consistently earned critical acclaim and festival attention whilst achieving a wide audience. Vigil, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988) and Map of the Human Heart (1993) were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between them they garnered close to 30 national and international awards (including the Grand Prix at festivals in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the United States).

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey won the major awards at both the Australian and New Zealand film industry awards. What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams, was nominated for two Academy Awards (best production design and best visual effects) and won the Oscar for best visual effects in 1999 grossing all territories more than US 200 million.

Whilst in the United States, Ward wrote the story for Alien 3 and for three years developed the material that was the basis of The Last Samurai, selecting its director, and acting as executive producer on that project before writing and directing River Queen - a woman's story of going into a 19th century (native) Maori community.

Related story: Rain of the Children

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17/06/08