The joy of short films

The phrase most often heard during a four-day short film festival is that film-making, in particular short films, is a ‘labour of love‘.By that, the film-maker means he/she/they did not make a bean out of it – in fact probably lost money. Gympie’s Heart of Gold International short film festival was held last weekend after a two-year hiatus through the Covid pandemic. Festival director Jackson Lapsley Scott waded through 914 short movies from Australia and…

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Music festivals and footie finals

Some of our musician friends in Melbourne and Sydney have ‘festival envy’, akin to the mixed emotions felt by southern footie fans who will miss out on this year’s grand finals. As you might know, the National Rugby League (NRL) moved all teams across the border into Queensland. As a result of ongoing Covid lockdowns in Victoria and New South Wales, this year’s Grand Final will be held in Brisbane for the first time ever….

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Arts Take Virtual Performance To Another Level

One evening in April, a Kiwi songwriter friend living in London posted a YouTube video by the London Humanist Choir, performing a love song in Māori. The video of New Zealand’s unofficial anthem, Pokarekare Ana, was, as we are now accustomed, a multi-screen video with choir members recording their parts remotely. I shared this with a few Kiwi friends who live elsewhere, knowing it would tug at the tendrils of homesickness, which are almost always…

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