Filmmaker and video artist Kathy Dudding began her career making experimental films using a Super 8 camera. Hey Daisy toured New Zealand and Australia in a programme of Super 8 films, and her 16mm experimental film Smash Dupe appeared in the New Zealand International Film Festival in 1986, and toured American in the 'Invisible Cinema' programme. Kathy's activist documentary Kanaky au Pouvoir was nominated for a Short Film award in the 1989 New Zealand Listener Film and Television Awards. Filmmaker and video artist Kathy Dudding began her career making experimental films using a Super 8 camera. Hey Daisy toured New Zealand and Australia in a programme of Super 8 films, and her 16mm experimental film Smash Dupe appeared in the New Zealand International Film Festival in 1986, and toured American in the 'Invisible Cinema' programme. Kathy's activist documentary Kanaky au Pouvoir was nominated for a Short Film award in the 1989 New Zealand Listener Film and Television Awards.After a hiatus working in the film industry in various positions, Kathy completed an undergraduate degree in film studies followed recently by a Master of Fine Arts in video installation art. Her video art work This is not a family album has been shown recently in a solo exhibition at the Pelorus Trust Gallery, The Film Archive, Wellington and in the group show Patient Rooms at the Reed Gallery, DAAP, University of Cincinnati. She has also exhibited numerous times in the Wellington Fringe Festival with the video art collective VanTV. Kathy has published widely in poetry journals including JAAM, Poetry NZ and brief and writes for the film journal Illusions.

The Return combines Kathy's interest in found footage, video installation art, documentary and her writing practice.

The Return

Director: Kathy Dudding
Year: 2007
Running time: 57 mins
New Zealand
Producer/Photography/Editor: Kathy Dudding
Animator: Euan Frizzell
Music: Plan 9
DigiBeta

Kathy Dudding's experimental documentary - a poetic portrait of Wellington city - achieves a pleasing and eerie resonance through the simplest of formal devices. On the soundtrack she constructs a conversation that might have occurred in the past by merging the reminiscences of her 90-year-old grandmother's early life in Wellington with her own reflections. On screen she intercuts her own placidly composed images of the Wellington waterfront with black and white 'found footage' shot in Wellington between 1908-1933. The passage of time is elegantly inscribed in this poignant and thoughtful film. €” BG.

"The postcard shot was eschewed - instead I focused on the offbeat moment, the quirky, the strange, the surreal side of the city... The Return is a tribute to the life of my grandmother, as much as it is a celebration of the city of her childhood, which subsequently became my own home." €” Kathy Dudding

The Return screens at the 37th Wellington Film Festival, at the Film Archive, corner of Vivian and Taranaki streets, 12.15pm and 1.30pm, Friday, July 25.

Session Times
25 Jul | 12:15pm | Film Archive
25 Jul | 1:30pm | Film Archive

Related story

TBI Q&A: Kathy Dudding

Feature: New Zealand International Film Festivals

The Dominion Post: Walks in the wind with grandmother

22/07/08