Technologies of Culture: Digital Feature Filmmaking in New Zealand

This article provides the first overview of contemporary low budget digital cinema in New Zealand, the first decade of which has resulted in a body of fiction films that contest the national cinematic canon in terms of thematic and representational emphases as well as narrative and aesthetic strategies. To investigate the causes and consequences of these departures, the output and methods of New Zealand’s digital feature filmmakers are explored, revealing how shifts in creative processes and increased access to the means of production enabled by low cost, lightweight digital video intersect with the proliferating cultural affiliations of emerging filmmakers to produce change. I thus argue that the very ontology of digital video and associated medium-specific practices are increasingly integral to culturally and aesthetically pluralistic projections in New Zealand cinema. As a consequence, I also argue for public investment in the sector and the alteration of funding policies designed for large-budget productions so that a tier of filmmaking ripe for experimentation and innovation can exist in fruitful dialogue with more mainstream fare.