New Zealand’s thriving screen industry is doing big business around the world and China wants a piece of the action. PETER REES has the details.


China has spent the past 30 years transforming into an economic giant following their bloody Cultural Revolution of the late 60s and early 70s.
Now with money in the bank, and a growing consumer driven population, the demand for entertainment, particularly feature films, is at an all-time high.
China boasts over 4,700 cinema screens and grossed over US$909 million (49% jump from previous year) at the box office at the end of 2009.
The high demand and the fact the Chinese government only allows 20 foreign films to be screened within its borders every year means the demand for local productions has skyrocketed.
A whopping 450 films were made in China last year, including 67 official co-productions, which qualifies China as the world’s third-biggest film producer.
China is determined to both exceed the U.S at the Box Office and show the world its artistic potential. That is the reason why the country’s leaders are keen to quench the thirst of its local filmmakers and television producers, whose creative juices are flowing, but lacking the finesse and expertise to take them to the next level.
China has thus turned its attention to New Zealand, hoping the Kiwis can pass on the trade secrets of their own Cultural Revolution in the creative arts industries.
On paper, China and New Zealand look like mismatched warriors on a battlefield, David versus Goliath. China, after all, outnumbers the ‘Land of the long white cloud’ by a billion people and just happens to be the world’s fastest growing economy. So why would China be interested in a country where sheep outnumber the population?
It’s the same reason why China and Taiwan are locked in a political tug-of-war over the loyalties of tiny Pacific island nations. The Kiwis have something China doesn’t have, and they want it.
New Zealand is rich in creative and technological nous; personable traits many attribute to the diverse cultural makeup of New Zealand today. It is this diversity that has helped New Zealand become an influential player in the multi-billion dollar screen industry.
New Zealanders also love going to the movies. New Zealand made NZ$170 million at the Box Office last year, not bad for a nation of just four million. Even more impressive is that over 30,000 New Zealanders are employed in the screen industry. The Government pumps about NZ$100 million into the local screen industry.
The screen industry is big business, thriving like never before and in demand around the world. New Zealand already has film co-production deals with 10 countries, including Australia, Britain and South Korea. The success of films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the technical expertise New Zealand production companies like Weta Digital Studios offer, has pumped millions of dollars into the local economy through foreign exchange and tourism.
China wants a piece of the action, a big piece in fact. The film co-production agreement signed in July between New Zealand and China shows the extent of China’s interest.
The agreement, signed by Prime Minister John Key and China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, opens the way for co-production joint ventures between the two countries. China has reached out to New Zealand, but Key says Kiwis also stand to benefit.

AGREEMENT
“New Zealand filmmakers are increasingly interested in partnering with Chinese filmmakers and in telling stories of interest to both cultures,” he says. “The China film market offers considerable potential and there are significant benefits in being an early mover here. This agreement will offer greater certainty to investors looking to fund New Zealand-China film co-productions.”
Weta Digital general manager Tom Greally sums it up perfectly: “Our calling card is our innovation, our creativity, and the quality that brings. Their game is how they can do things quickly and at a very low cost. There’s got to be a meeting somewhere of those two objectives,” he says.
Lifeng Wang, president of animation and visual FX house Xing Xing says Chinese companies will benefit from New Zealand’s technological know-how. “It’s just a natural match if we work with Weta and maybe do some outsourcing for them. And maybe some of the work we have, which is very technically challenging, we can use Weta’s help.”
New Zealand’s screen industry has not laying idle either and has been busy laying the groundwork for the signing over the past three years.
“This is very exciting for the New Zealand film industry and there are a number of co-production projects already in development,” says Film Auckland Board member, Pete Rive.
One of the major bonuses of the agreement is that a New Zealand-China co-production will count as a local production and will not only be eligible for government funding support, it will not fall into the category of a foreign film. China’s strict quota system allows only 20 foreign films to be screened within its borders per year. The other obvious bonus is that New Zealand filmmakers can now tap into the resource rich Chinese film industry.
“China has so many resources and their film industry is well funded. They can afford to specialise in specific areas whereas we are used to wearing a number of hats,” says a Dan Wagner, a New Zealand cinematographer, who visited the Beijing Film Academy in June. “That is why we are in demand, the skill sets many of us have and the creativity side. China is still behind in that sense and there are censorship and cultural issues which affects they way they teach and practise filmmaking. But they are slowly breaking down those barriers and they see us as helping with that.”
Production companies and film academies from both countries have wasted little time. Just days after Key signed the agreement, Film Auckland hosted a visit by the head of Hengdian Film Studios, one of China’s biggest television and film companies, and sent a delegation to the Shanghai International Film Festival where it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s largest filmmakers organisation, the China Film Association.
The New Zealand Film Festival was also taken on tour in July to Beijing and Shanghai, where New Zealand’s pavilion at the World Expo received a lot of attention.
Wellington based Gibson Group also announced it was at the script writing stage for a new 40-episode series based on Chinese diggers coming to New Zealand during the late 1800s gold rush, it is producing with a major Chinese television company.
New Zealand and China are now eyeing a separate agreement in television if when signed, will be the first treaty of its kind that China has signed with another country—another notch in the belt for New Zealand politicians.
New Zealand was also the first developed OECD country to negotiate a free trade agreement with China in 2008. Since that agreement was signed China has become New Zealand’s second biggest trade partner after Australia, a relationship worth NZ$10 billion. John Key wants to double that figure by 2015.

BROWN FACTOR
New Zealand’s growing status over the past decade has coincided with the “browning” of New Zealand screens. The number of Maori or Pacific faces seen on film and television screens today is a marked contrast to 20 years ago when they were seldom seen.
Today the landscape has changed considerably. Maori actors, Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider, The Vintner’s Luck, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) and Cliff Curtis (Blow, Training Day, Collateral Damage, Once Were Warriors, TV’s Trauma) are Hollywood actors.
Not only are brown faces in front of the camera, they are now calling the shots. Maori filmmaker Taika Waititi directed Boy, a film about a Maori boy’s dysfunctional relationship with his father, which broke the New Zealand Box Office record for a locally made film, topping $9.2 million in July.
That placed Boy into seventh on the country’s all time list, joining a list of Kiwi films with either Maori or Pacific influence, which have exceeded expectations, stretching back to 1994 and Once Were Warriors, directed by Lee Tamahori (who went on to direct the James Bond flick Die Another Day) and The Piano, which won 3 Oscars.
Those films put New Zealand on the Box Office map and made stars of Temuera Morrison (Speed 2, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones & Revenge of the Sith, Shortland Street) and Anna Paquin, an Oscar winner for best supporting actress, who has gone on to win an Emmy award for her role in popular American TV series True Blood.
In the 2000s, three films put brown faces permanently on the national conscious; Whale Rider (2002), which saw Castle-Hughes nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards and grossed $US41.5 million worldwide; Toa Fraser’s No. 2 (2006), a film based on the director/writer’s Fijian heritage, which won the World Audience Award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival; and Sione’s Wedding (2006) written by Samoan-born Oscar Kightley.
Times had changed. So did attitudes. And the country’s ethnic mix diversified from increased migration from Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Together Maori, Asians and Pacific islanders number just over million people, according to the last census in 2006; that’s almost a quarter of New Zealand’s population. This dramatic demographic shift has altered New Zealand’s perception of its national identity, and with more voices, comes the need for more diversity.
The film and television industry has acknowledged this shift and adjusted accordingly. And what at first seemed a ratings gamble by casting more ‘brown’ faces and storylines, has bore fruit for key organisations such as the New Zealand Film Commission, South Pacific Pictures and Television New Zealand.
Maori and Pacific actors have added their own ‘colour’ to the industry with their unique and sometimes polarising personas; humorous, larger than life, boisterous and at the same time dark and fearsome.
But their point of difference is the fact they are great story-tellers and a great story sells.
On television, the highest ratings locally made shows Outrageous Fortune and Shortland Street reflect New Zealand’s ethnic diversity through their casting and storylines. It is no surprise these shows have found audiences across the Pacific and Australia, and even as far as the US and the UK. People are fascinated by New Zealand’s multiculturalism and the way Kiwis embrace life, and this has translated to the big screen.
The Peter Jacksons (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) of this world may be the trailblazers. But Maori and Pacific actors, directors, writers and producers have provided the X-factor.
This point of difference is why New Zealand’s screen industry punches above its weight at the Box Office and made other countries, like China, sit up and take notice.