FILM SOCIETY FORMED

Chronicle (Levin), 20 November 1946, Page 8

FILM SOCIETY FORMED

Meeting Heid In Levin • A meeting held in the Horowhenua Coilege assembly hall on Monday night had as its outcome the formation of a film society, in Levin. Several societies of this.kind are already in existence in New Zealand, -land are in reality associations of people who are -interested in the motion picture as art, entertainment and education. Once a society is formed films are available free- of charge from the New Zealand National Film Library. The meeting was convened by Messrs. J. Todd and A. B. Coles, and was attended by over 100 interested persons. Mr. Todd said that the most expensive item would be the purchase of a 16 m.m. projector, the cost of which was approximately £200. Once this had been met the only other expenditure would be the hiring of a hall for the purpose of screening films. These films would include many of those made by the New Zealand National Film Unit. The speaker gave a comprehensive survey of the type of films that would be shown. He said that once the society was in operation it would be pleased to co-operate with the Horowhenua Coilege and Levin Primary School in the showing oi educational films. Members with their own 16 m.m. cameras would be encouraged, and would be permitted to screen their own films.

Interesting Screening During the evening the New Zealand premiere of the film "Film and Reality" was screened. It was made in Great Britain in 1942 and was of 12 reels, making a screening time of 105 minutes. It \yas a com-' posite film on the use of realist material in the cinema from its earliest days, and was under the direction of Cavalcanti. Marey, the Lumieres and their fello'w directors sought a means of reproducing the movement of real life, but cinemaGography was quickly seized on by the amusements industry and developed, under the influence of the theatre, into a means of reenacting melodramatic stories,. Side by side with such films. the realist film survived in the newsreel, the general interest and scientific film, and the travelogue. In 1922, with his film "Nano'ok of the North," Flaherty made the first documentary film in the modern sense. It was followed by such films as "Moana," "Grass," "Eve Africaine," "Voyage Au Congo," "Pays du Scalp" and "Man of Aran." All these films, however, concerned themselves with romantic themes of li'fe in distant lands in primitive societies. Documentaries of life at home, such as Cavalcanti's "Rien Que-les Heures" and Ruttmann's "Berlin," encouraged documentary film-makers to turn to the life around them, and to its social problems, as in the Soviet Union ("General Line," "Turksib"), in Britain ("Drifters," "Contact," "Industrial Britain," "Housing Problems." "Song of Ceylon,"

"Nigiitmail" and "North Sea") , in France ("Delaherche the Potter," "Taris," "Le Mile," "Un Monastere" ) , in the work of Ivens ("Zuyderzee" and "Spanish Earth") and in the U.S.A. ("March of Time," "The Plow that Broke the Plains") . The final sequence returned again to the story film and showed how the realist element, never completely submerged, has grown stronger with the development of technique, especially in the historical reconstruction films (illustrated from "The Covered Wagon," and "The Life of Emile Zola"). In conclusion were shown excerpts from three recent films notable for their realism, "Kameradschaft," "La Grande Illusion" and "Farewell Again." Also shown during the evening was a technicolour ten-minute film, "Live at Home," illustrating the American farmer's advantage in regard to home produced food to the city dweller. Committee Formed Following the screenings, a committee consisting of Rev. G. . B. Stote-Blandy and Messrs. L. Lannie, A. B. Coles, J. Todd, J. Tomlinson and E, R. Winkler was set up to investigate the matter of purchasing a suitable projector for the society's future screenings. In conclusion, Mr. Todd thanked Mr. L. A. Furness, the projector operator who had come from palmerston North, the Horowhenua Coilege authorities for the loan of he hall, and all who had helped during the evening.