With: Allen Curnow
Narrator: Jennifer Ward-Lealand
Director/Screenplay/Producer: Shirley Horrocks
Writer/Research: Roger Horrocks
Producers: Catherine Madigan, Robin Laing
Production co: Point of View Productions
Photography: Leon Narbey
Editors: Phil Topfer, James Schoning, Ken Sparks, Tim Mauger
Music: Johnathon Besser, Douglas Lilburn
Sound: Chris Burt, Craig Perry
SYNOPSIS

Allen Curnow was one of the greatest of New Zealand writers, with a major international reputation. Winner of 7 New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, he was the first person outside Britain to receive the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.  This is the only documentary to explore Curnow’s remarkable life and work. It’s a compelling close-up portrait of a man who worked on the cutting edge of literature for nearly 70 years. 

​Beautifully filmed by Leon Narbey, with music by Jonathan Besser and Douglas Lilburn, the film takes Curnow to the scenes of many of his most important poems - from New Zealand’s South Island landscapes and Auckland’s West Coast beaches to the streets of Rome.  It provides vivid access to Curnow’s work by dramatised versions of his poems and by his own fascinating comments on writing.

"It is good that Curnow allowed a film-maker as deft and careful as Horrocks to finally tell us about him." 

- Greg Dixon, New Zealand Herald

Screened on TV One (TVNZ) and as part of the 2001 New Zealand International Film Festivals. Screenings by the ABC (Australia) and The Documentary Channel (NZ).
FILM SOCIETY SCREENING
 
Nelson                                   
Thursday, 8 March, 6.00pm
Screens with:
SONS OF 71
Doug Brooks, NZ 2017, DV,12mins
A prizewinning film from the ‘Top of the South’ short film competition, about two brothers who come together in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to find that it still rages in Mark’s mind...
+ NFS 2018 AGM (30mins approx)
Want to see this film?  Ask your local Film Society to add to their 2019 programme.