After being an audience favourite and selling out it's screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival this July, and being the first film to sell out at this years Auckland International Film Festival, the cult kiwi flick WOODENHEAD is coming back! After being an audience favourite and selling out it's screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival this July, and being the first film to sell out at this years Auckland International Film Festival, the cult kiwi flick WOODENHEAD is coming back!WOODENHEAD will begin it's NZ theatrical season at Auckland's ACADEMY CINEMA commencing Friday 13th, February 2004.

The grimm musical fairytale will also have its European Premiere at the Sitges International Film Festival in Spain this December.

Not bad for an experimental film that cost NZ$30,000 to make!

We are confident that the positive word of mouth will continue to spread, and thank the New Zealand media for it's incredible support so far!

If you would like to review the film for the upcoming season, please contact me for a preview dvd/vhs. If you are interested in doing a feature on Woodenhead or any of the artists/actors/performers/film-makers involved,
check out Woodenhead's website for some interesting bios and pictures.

www.woodenhead.co.nz"

I have included some reviews and quotes below.

Kia ora!!

florian habicht,
producer/director Woodenhead.

W O O D E N H E A D !

A truly unsettling, visually inventive, stylistically thrilling and quite marvellous diamond in the rough. Woodenhead takes the traditional fairy tale and re-processes it through the minds of filmmakers like Canadian master of the peculiar Guy Maddin and animators of the arcane, the Quay Brothers.

Incredibly, all of the dialogue and location sound for Woodenhead was completed first and the images shot to fit a crazed reversal of accepted practice.

An innocent rubbish tip assistant, Gert, is given the task of escorting a beautiful mute "princess", Plum, on a perilous journey to meet her prospective husband. As with all such mythical quests, their journey is fraught with danger, challenges, romance and discovery. The menagerie of
characters and animals they encounter, the breath-taking landscape of far-flung corners of New Zealand and the surreal action that drives their trip is all tackled in unforgettable fashion. Mirroring the archetypes of
the subconscious and demons from the id that stalk the best work of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, Woodenhead has a bright future ahead, frightening small children and leaving the grown-ups strangely troubled.

James Hewison Director MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

SUNDAY STAR REVIEW BY GRANT SMITHIES, SUNDAY NOV 23, 2003:
RATING: * * * *

I haven't seen the movie, but Marc Chesterman's soundtrack for Florian Habicht's digital flick Woodenhead certainly makes me want to. Dark and quirky, part vaudeville, part fairy tale, with snippets of somewhat disconcerting dialogue shoehorned between short musical tracks, the music
alone has me imagining some kind of psychotic soap opera set in the wilds of Northland and directed by David Lynch.

From the doleful cello of "Maidenwood" to the screaming guitar of "Goerdel", from the cruise ship bossa nova of "Horoscope Dance" to the wonderfully weary lullabies "Lucky Star" and "Hospice for Destitute Lovers", it's an
ever-changing, constantly surprising and slightly malevolent mood-fest.

This soundtrack was recorded before any visuals were shot, with the actors then invited to improvise their parts to small, scene-sized chunks of sound, which resulted in extremely well-integrated sound and vision but a big
problem synching up the dialogue. The cunning solution? The actors deliver their lines without moving their lips, as if they're communicating telepathically. Go and see it, but in the meantime, buy the record, lay back and let your mind make movies of its own.

"This country has never looked so sensual, its people so damp with lust. What else does this talented film maker know and should we let him revel it?"
-Chris Knox REAL GROOVE MAGAZINE

"Kiwi-accented refugees from a kitsch European carnival world stutter, sing and lollop their way around a New Zealand landscape of almost ethereal, black and white beauty. There are moments Fellini might have envied when
Habicht's carnival beings and his landscape coalesce in 'sad, strange and beautiful' florescence."
-Bill Gosden
NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS

"Kooky and wonderful"
"the sort of film you come to festivals for"
"innovative and surreal"
"sensational"
"highlight of the festival"
"truly experimental."
- audience comments from the Melbourne International Film Festival 2003.

"Habicht has here created a minor masterpiece, and I don't doubt that he will go on to give the world a major one given the time and the funding."
-Larry Jenkins, NORTHERN NEWS ARTS

"Florian Habicht's film Woodenhead is, by all accounts, an ambitious and different piece of work in the landscape of local movies."
-Graham Reid NEW ZEALAND HERALD (from soundtrack review