50-year run for Canterbury Film Society
By Guy Grant. [The Star - Wednesday 24/3/04 pgA5] Movies are more than the latest Hollywood blockbuster for a bunch of keen Christchurch film buffs. The enthusiasts behind the Canterbury Film Society have put together a mixed series of film showings for the year and are eager to both challenge and entertain audiences in 2004. The society was founded 50 years ago. With a half century under its belt it is looking to a healthier future after a less-than-rosy period in the 1990s when the wealth of cinematic experiences in Christchurch threatened to sideline the organisation. Society president Ryan Reynolds said there were a number of years in the late 1990s where the society effectively "died" because of lack of interest. "It went quiet for a couple of years," he told the Star. But a group of enthusiasts made an effort two years ago to mount a half-season to see if it would work," and it actually went well enough," he said. The society ran a full season last year and launched the 2004 season earlier this month With the original Solaris movie, a Russian film from 1972. The society promises 24 nights of film, with an annual membership cost of $80 for the waged, although people can join at any time during the year. The main venue this year is Creation, the old Metro cinema, at 105 Worcester St behind the Cathedral. Reynolds said that by the end of last year's season the society had 101 members, ranging from a 15-year-old to a woman in her 70s. He said the society's success relied on support from both movie-goers and society volunteers and committee members. Reynolds is a theatre and film PhD student based at Canterbury University - as are others, who have helped to inject some new life into the society. "But most are not with the university at all. I was quite pleasantly surprised," he said. Reynolds said people were attracted to the society because it was an opportunity to see hard-to-find-movies. Reynolds said about half of the movies they screened were titles people wouldn't even find at Alice in Videoland - which to Reynolds indicated they were pretty rare. The society shows a selection of mainstream Hollywood classics, but also likes to screen more challenging works. This year's titles include the 1930 Marlene Dietrich classic The Blue Angel, Charade from 1963 starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, and a number of modem European and West African movies. "Some of the films we see here are anything but safe. Sometimes people leave scratching their heads thinking: What was that? And they come back," he said. But the society also represented a chance for people to mix with other movie buffs and share a sense of community about movie-going. To encourage this, the society plans activities before and after screenings, including talks from experts to, make the films more meaningful to audiences than they might otherwise be.
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