City of My Youth

Ahh, Dunedin... it's not the city of my youth actually, but that's a James K Baxter poem and I couldn't resist the title. I love Dunedin. It's a city of only 120,000 people, and yet there's so much going on in the creative sector - more so than in much bigger cities.

Last night was at the opening of the DocNZ festival in Dunedin. Great night out. But alongside that, the Dunedin Festival of Film & Television Craft begins today, and the Fringe Festival also kicks off. So everyone with a vaguely creative bone in their body is racing around in circles... I'm down here to do a premiere of a doco which has been 5 years in the making. It's a real Dunedin story and no better place to launch it.

Off to a seminar this morning run by NZFC about making short films as a pathway to features. This is a time-honoured pathway, but I wonder how often it is followed? There's a huge step up from shorts to features - almost might as well be a different sphere altogether. While shorts hone skills, it's a big ditch to jump to get into the world of features.

Meanwhile, out into the streets of Dunners...