Around the World Saturday Matinee

Listing details: Around the World Saturday Matinee series. Saturdays at 4.30, June 8 - July 20 Where: The New Zealand Film Archive, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington Ticket price: $6 for those aged 14 and under / $8 adults / $40 season passport

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Around the World Saturday Matinee

The Film Archive and Square Eyes partner to present the Around the World Saturday Matinee collection.

This is a showcase of the very best of world cinema for young audiences, including drama, documentary and animated films. From amazing animation to aweinspiring adventures, these Saturday matinees offer a rare opportunity for cinema-hungry kids (and those lucky enough to accompany them) to see films, both old and new, from all corners of the world.

The seven-week series has been selected to engage, entertain, and enlighten with a variety of film offerings. Featuring Aardman Animations much-loved and now remastered Wallace and Gromit; The Secret of Kells (2008), an Oscar-nominated tale inspired by Irish mythology; The Red Balloon / Le Balon rouge (1956), beloved by young and the young at heart for decades; Turtle: The Incredible Journey (2009), one of the most extraordinary voyages in the natural world; West African fable and European favourite Kirikoku and The Sorceress (1998); Czech stopmotion masterpiece Toys in The Attic (2009); and New Zealand’s own Rangi’s Catch (1973).

Come and travel on a cinematic world tour – all without leaving the comfort of your Film Archive cinema seat! Stow your hand luggage, buckle your seatbelt and prepare to take off on a journey through classic films and undiscovered gems.

The Around the World Saturday Matinee series is curated by Nicola Marshall, Director of Square Eyes - New Zealand Film Foundation. A Wellington local, Marshall has recently returned from the United States, where she is Managing Director of the New York International Children’s Film Festival.

The matinees will screen at 4.30pm Saturdays, June 8 - July 20. At The Film Archive, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington.

SCREENING PROGRAMME Saturday 8 June - Wallace and Gromit: Mini Masterpieces (UK) No one creates animated mayhem quite like crackpot inventor Wallace and his faithful dog, Gromit. Join the Academy Award-winning sensations for three madcap and beautifully digitally remastered adventures in this very special Aardman Animations presentation. Hang on for an out-of-this-world ride as Wallace’s mad craving for cheese leads to a space rocket adventure in A Grand Day Out (1989). In The Wrong Trousers (1993), Gromit smells something fishy after a penguin moves in and plots to make off with Wallace’s Techno-Trousers. Then it’s time for A Close Shave (1995) as Wallace and Gromit get wrapped up in a sheep-rustling scheme.

Saturday 15 June - The Secret of Kells (Ireland/France/Belgium) Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells (2008) has been hailed by international critics as one of the most beautiful and graphically unique films in recent memory. This celebrated and refreshingly calm animation hearkens back to animation’s golden age with an enchanting tale inspired by Irish mythology. Young Brendan lives in the Abbey of Kells, a remote medieval outpost, where he labours with the other monks to fortify the abbey walls against Viking raids. But a new life of adventure beckons when one day a celebrated master illuminator arrives from foreign lands, carrying a ancient - but unfinished - book, brimming with secret wisdom and powers.

Saturday 22 June - The Red Balloon + White Mane (France) Two short French films screen alongside each other. In Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Ballon / Le Balon rouge (1956) - a deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale - a young boy discovers a stray balloon that seems to have a mind of its own.

Wandering through the streets of Paris, the two become inseparable, to the surprise of the neighborhood and the envy of other children. The Red Balloon has enchanted the young and the young at heart for decades, and it will surely continue to find new generations of fans in this restored version. White Mane / Crin blanc (1953) tells the story of a magnificent stallion who lives in the south of France, in a near-desert region called La Camargue. White Mane is the leader of a herd of wild horses too proud to let themselves be broken in by humans. Only Folco, a young fisherman, manages to form a friendship with him.

Saturday 29 June - Turtle: The Incredible Journey (UK/Austria/Germany) Turtle: The Incredible Journey (2009) is a stunning documentary film about the life and travels of one little loggerhead turtle, as she follows in the path of her ancestors on one of the most extraordinary voyages in the natural world. Born on a beach in Florida, she rides her life current, the Gulf Stream, up towards the Arctic and ultimately swims around the entire North Atlantic before returning to the beach where she was born. But the odds are stacked against her making it; just one in ten thousand turtles survive the 25-year journey. We watch as she grows into a strongwilled adult braving the six-thousand mile journey that has been the species’ perilous ritual for millions of years.

Saturday 6 July - Kirikou and The Sorceress (France/Belgium) Michel Ocelot’s splendid feature, Kirikou and The Sorceress (1998), tells a sensual and beautiful story - a West African fable about the power of original innocence. It’s the satisfying tale of the journey of a tiny baby boy who rarely stops moving until he defeats the sorceress Karaba, who threatens his village. Taking its artistic inspiration from African sculpture and Egyptian art, the distinctive pictorial style of Ocelet’s award-winning film is bolstered by an authentic soundtrack from Senegalese musician Youssou N’dour.

Saturday 13 July - Toys in The Attic (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Japan) Featuring the voices of Forest Whitaker, Joan Cusack and Cary Elwes, legendary Czech stop-motion animation master Jirí Barta’s animated feature, Toys in The Attic (2009) is a diabolically inventive tale; described as “four parts Toy Story and one part David Lynch.” In a dusty attic full of discarded junk, Buttercup, the fairest doll in the land, lives in an old trunk together with her friends. There’s Schubert, the lumpy clay-animated ball, with a body of plasticine and a bottle-top on his head; Sir Handsome, a Quixotic marionette who speaks in verse and imagines himself a dragon-slaying knight; and Teddy, the worse-for-wear station master, who’s clearly had more than his fair share of powerful hugs. However, in this enchanted world where every day is a birthday, danger is lurking.

Saturday 20 July - Rangi’s Catch (UK/NZ) Originally made for British television, by New Zealand born director Michael Forlong, Rangi’s Catch (1973) saw New Zealand theatrical release back in the days when “Kiwi film” was still an oxymoron. Two escaped convicts (Michael Woolf and Ian Mune) attract attention after stealing clothes from a remote sheep farm. It takes two kids and a family adventure to catch them after tracking the crooks through Picton, Wellington, Waitomo, the Wanganui River and Rotorua. Filmed amidst scenic splendour, Rangi’s Catch is a captivating story for all-ages, and boasts a young Temuera Morrison in his first on-screen role.

ENDS

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