Meeting

Spare a thought for the upcoming meeting between director Gillies Mackinnon and CEO of the NZ Film Commission in London. The main agenda is for Graeme Mason (NZFC) to get some idea of Gillies' commitment to the project and take on the material - how he plans to work with it.

Gillies, being Glaswegian, is not a man to mince words. I suspect he'll have his own agenda, which will be to ask why a NZ film is not getting more support from NZ! And it is true that most of the action and commitment has come from people in the UK.

So the potential for meeting to become 'interesting' shall we say, is strong. And yet it represents that difficult interface which is a part of most indie films - the encounter between the artistic and the commercial. It's an uneasy alliance, and yet both parties are necessary to the success of a film.

Just one more set of rocks to be avoided as we navigate our way into the harbour... The meeting BTW, is for 9.30am Monday UK time (8.30pm NZ).