Director David Blyth has created some of New Zealand’s most graphic and challenging movies dealing with horror, sexuality, and the sub-conscious mind. His career began as an assistant director on the film Solo, but it was his first feature Angel Mine which showed his interests in pushing the boundaries of film making.

Director David Blyth has created some of New Zealand’s most graphic and challenging movies dealing with horror, sexuality, and the sub-conscious mind. His career began as an assistant director on the film Solo, but it was his first feature Angel Mine which showed his interests in pushing the boundaries of film making.

In his time, Blyth has made a number of documentary features, directed episodes of Close to Home and created New Zealand’s first horror film Death Warmed Up and more recently dark tale Wound.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Blyth talks about:

• Being the first director to get interim Film Commission funding for Angel Mine
• How the film predicted the rise of social media and viagra
• How his confidence as a director was knocked by critics of the film
• Why, despite being a cult horror film overseas Death Warmed Up failed in NZ
• Having no original copy of the film because it was burned
• Filming his grandfather for the First World War doco Our Oldest Soldier
• How initially no one was interested in the story
• Making Wound as an antidote to feeling his career was over; the film explores how abuse in the family can lead to dramatic consequences
• How the film has reinvigorated his passion for filmmaking
• How his career has been about looking at the horror in the everyday

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

NZ On Screen: Interview, Camera & Editing – Andrew Whiteside

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