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Film-goers welcome Edith Collier documentary
A documentary on the life and work of Wanganui painter Edith Collier, A Light Among Shadows, has received an enthusiastic response from film-goers and played to sold-out houses at the 2007 New Zealand International Film Festival.
Described as "a beautiful, rich and acutely sensitive film" by The Dominion Post, the film was directed by Raumati South filmmaker Michael Heath and produced by Bhim Singh Chouhan of KBCRE Productions, Wanganui.
Edith Collier: A Light Among Shadows was made with the support of a $25,000 grant from the Screen Innovation Production Fund, a partnership between Creative New Zealand and the New Zealand Film Commission.
"The grant was everything. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to make the film the way that I wanted it," Michael Heath says.
"We were overjoyed with the emotional response from the public and people have told me that it took them on a real journey. It's a film about our past - a story about provincial New Zealand almost 100 years ago and a powerful metaphor for the young artist of the day dealing with cultural identity and rejection."
Along with cinematographer Stephen Latty, the team also made the acclaimed cinematic song cycle, A Small Life, starring Mahinarangi Tocker. This film has won ten international awards, including eight awards at the 2nd Kara Film Festival in Karachi, Pakistan and the Grand Prix Senef, in Seoul, South Korea.
Michael says Edith Collier: A Light Among Shadows reveals a lot about a courageous woman who was ahead of her time but overlooked and ignored for so long. "I hope this film will encourage our national galleries to share her wonderful works with the New Zealand public."
The Film Archive also screened the documentary in August because of the public's response to it at the 2007 New Zealand International Film Festival
