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So, my name's Welby Ings, um, I, But amongst them, I make films and, uh, I'm a professor of design and I write books and I've been an activist in, in, uh, queer politics and education reform. But, but this is about my feature film, Punch. And, uh, Basically, it's a film about masculinity in New Zealand. And it's a love story that has three parts to it. There's a relationship between a [00:00:30] father and a son. So it's a love relationship between a dad and a son. When the dad is an alcoholic and the son has become the father of the father. And then it's a relationship between that son and a young, or a young man the same age as him, who's takatāpui. So, uh, for non New Zealanders, that is, it kind of means a gay Māori man, but not in the same way that gay is meant in English. And, um, and then just very [00:01:00] tangentially, the relationship between that man and, and the boy's father. What's the relationship between Punch and your earlier short film Sparrow? Yeah, so Sparrow, you know, Sparrow way back I imagine doing a short, a film that started with a short film and then once the feature started you realise the short film was the backstory on the feature and it came from the old convention in New Zealand that you used to go to the cinema and see a short film before the feature and I [00:01:30] thought maybe you could play with that, but of course contemporary audiences are not used to that. So I made Sparrow basically to trial out some ideas, but Sparrow was based on a true story. And then as Sparrow found its feet, or flight, or whatever you would say, without mixed metaphors, it became a beast of its own, and I separated Punch, except every film I make, there are props from the film [00:02:00] before appear in the next film. So if you have a look at Punch, The, the large photograph that sits on the wall above the, above the fireplace in the father's house is the photograph from Punch, from, from Sparrow. And the wings, the children play in the same wings that the boy had in Sparrow. But that's just a personally obsessive thing I have of transferring some elements from a previous film into a new one. And some of the names are similar, aren't they? So like some of the characters names like [00:02:30] Stan and Jim. Yeah, so um, I, I, I tend to, um, I, I tend to use very simple names for, um, but. Uh, the boy's father is not named in Sparrow, because Sparrow doesn't, has, has almost no spoken speech, or has a little, little bit, um, but I, I kind of imagined that, that if the boy in Sparrow grew up, in fact, and became a [00:03:00] boxer, and became a brilliant boxer, and actually fulfilled his dad's dreams, what would happen the day he walked away from boxing? So conceptually, they are linked, that the, the father is a different actor in it, and, and, and the boy is different, but it's pushing it forward, uh, uh, a few decades, or no, a few years, but actually I had to make that a bigger push conceptually, because Sparrow was really set in the 60s, and this is right now, so it didn't [00:03:30] work if you look at it logically, but in my head I went. What would one story fold into another? And both stories, um, of, of, uh, we did an interview in 2018, and you were saying that the, the, the storyline was inspired by your late partner, Kevin Todd. That's, that's right. So this is, um, Punch is, it's very discernible. So Kevin grew up in a boxing family, and his, um, he was gifted. He was a gifted boxer, but he [00:04:00] He put it all aside to become an athlete and he won a scholarship to UCLA, but his dad never really forgave him. And his dad was a boxing coach, he trained all the boys in the family to be boxers. And Kevin had a, uh, a strained relationship with his dad. His dad and I didn't get on terribly well, I have to admit. But he wasn't a bad man, and that's why in the film I don't make Stan a bad man. He's just a man whose masculinity was shaped by a different [00:04:30] generation. The central issue in the film, uh, came from when, uh, so Kevin contracted, um, the, uh, AIDS. And he, um, he died in, uh, just into 1998. And he didn't want his dad to know. And his dad, um, his dad found him in the hospice on Jervois Road. And, uh, and by that stage Kevin was Very, [00:05:00] very weak and uh, so he couldn't close his eyes, so you didn't know if he was asleep or awake and, and his dad came and sat in the lounge with me and um, and the door was shut to Kevin's room and the, the woman who was the kind of, I guess you'd call a matron was, had came out and said, no, he won't see you. And his dad just sat there, this, this, this man out of time, I think, out of, out of time and, um, And you could see he was [00:05:30] lost, he was so lost, and um, Anyway, but he didn't leave, and in, in the end the, the, uh, nurse went back in, And she came out and she said, Kevin said you can come in but, well, we has to come in too. Which wasn't something that I was, uh, So what you can't hear on the, on the recording is my face suddenly blanched Because I remembered that that wasn't a good thing. And sat in and, and a thing happened and I actually touch on it in, in, in [00:06:00] Punch. Um, his dad sat by the bed and he just touched the sheet next to Kevin. And they never said anything to each other. And it was about, I guess about 20 minutes he sat there. And in the end he was crying and then he got up and walked away. And, um, it shouldn't happen. Between good men, that, that shouldn't happen. We're all flawed, you know, but, [00:06:30] and they actually, they loved each other, but they couldn't make that bridge. And I thought, what would it be to make a film where the love between a father and son has become a, a problem, and you understand them as both flawed. But you could leave it with hope. And I said to Kevin, You know, I could make a film about this. And he [00:07:00] said, You'll never make it because you don't climb up the arses of the film commission, I think was the term he used. Um, um, Because I'm not very good at sucking up. But actually, the film commission, it took 15 years, but they did fund this. And I, you know, and I'm very appreciative of that. But it took 15 years of struggle to get it there. And it was really only when Tim Roth came on, he'd seen the script, and loved the character of Stan. And he said, yes, I'll come out. And, [00:07:30] um, and then it was a film that was going to be made. So, um, but I, yeah, I said to him, You know, the, the relationship with your dad. There would be a way of telling a story where we would see all the depth and complexity of such a thing resolved. And fuck it, I made it. You know, and I'm, I'm so proud, I sometimes think he can, um, he can see that. When the, the [00:08:00] lights are down in the theatre and the emotion is moving with the film, I think he's there. I was recently at a funeral and somebody spoke about how people can give us life changing moments, particularly when they come into our lives but also when they leave our lives. And I'm wondering what kind of impact has Kevin had on your life? So the house I live in, I built for him. So it's a kind of tree house and, uh, still got his [00:08:30] plants. Fucking Dracenas live forever. You know, and they're so tough. Um, so, and that's 30 odd years ago now. Um, so my life didn't stop. It continued to flourish just as his had flourished. But AIDS was a shit of a pandemic. And although we live in COVID now, AIDS took people away under the umbrella of being a pariah, of being a [00:09:00] leper, a social leper. And we didn't have, well, we had, by the time he died, we did have law reform, but we were still just getting the human rights amendments in. And, you know, he was taken out. to the hospice because Ward B in the hospital, the nurses didn't have to, they could say that they didn't want to treat you on moral grounds. Fucking terrible, you know? And, uh, and he was a man of such strong dignity. I mean, he was, he [00:09:30] called a spade a spade, really bluntly. Um, and so I, um, I loved him. And I don't think that love dies. I think it's cumulative. And so, uh, although my life has gone on to do things, um, I, just like I love my dad who's died, you know, I just, uh, I, I was thinking the other day, how, how did, [00:10:00] someone had asked the question, answer, how did you keep going for 15 years getting rejections? And I thought, the true answer to that is that I wanted to honour love. And that can give you immense strength in a time of doubt. You mentioned actor Tim Roth coming out, playing Stan. Um, you've also got two lead, young lead [00:10:30] New Zealand actors. And is this the first time they've been in a feature film? Yes, I think, yes, yes it is. First time in a feature film. So, they've both done little bits of, of, like, Kentucky Friedad on TV or, um, some, some bits of television. But, uh, I was, it took three years to find those boys of auditioning. And, um, and they're interesting because both of them, so they are [00:11:00] very different. Jordan has, um, had had his agent talk about his speech because he has, he has asthma. He's a brilliant sportsman. And, uh, and many brilliant sports people I know, you know, um, live with asthma and they, and they, and they excel. And it gave his voice a particular sound. And so I just made him asthmatic in the film. I just changed the script. Because he was so physically present in that character. [00:11:30] And he crafted such a He, he crafted what I remember of Kevin. Like, Kevin loved Being fit. He loved it. And he would, there was such joy in the determination. And as an actor, that's what Jordan has. And so, I just, yep, I just adjusted the script to accommodate. And um, Conan, who acts the part of Whetu, so many, many young Māori men [00:12:00] auditioned, but when they found out what the script actually was, many of them stepped back. And that we still have a crisis of masculinity in New Zealand for our young men. We pretend we don't, but we actually do. And, um, and of course, although I always imagined Whetu as the strongest man in the film, he is gender fluid, I wouldn't, he's not gender non binary, because he identifies as takutapuitane, as a man. But [00:12:30] he, uh, fuck if anyone's going to tell him how you express that, you know. I recall back in that 2018 interview, you did say that the Fetu character was the truest person in the film. And in, but now, no, all three of them are true. They, I, I crafted them so they come, initially when you meet all of them, each of them, you don't really like them. Um, their, their flaw is in [00:13:00] front of you, or, um, or they don't connect with you. And so then I thought the craft was how do you build someone so that at the end you have hope with them. and then take them through a whole series of stumbles to do that. So it isn't a standard three act redemption narrative, and it actually doesn't redeem in the way that you would expect. But it's interesting when we did the, um, the last, so we're interviewing this in the foyer of [00:13:30] the, um, uh, the embassy. So this is the same theater where we did the, uh, test screening of it before I did the last, the, before I did the last edits. And I substantially changed it after that. And, but the interesting thing was even from there, the three adjectives that the crowd, 200 people came up with was somber, hopeful, beautiful. And that's right. That's what I wanted. I want it. It doesn't shy away from difficult stuff, but it is exceedingly beautiful. But in the end, [00:14:00] it shows you that it's, that it's worth believing and hope, but it doesn't end like a rom com. Why was it important for Fetu to identify as takatāpui rather than, say, gay? Because with takatāpui it's more than just sexual identity, you know? Yeah, so, so Fetu has a backstory that doesn't appear in the film because I stripped it away from him because I wanted him, I wanted to make gaps in the film so that people watching it would fill it in [00:14:30] later, so it would haunt. And one way of doing that is to remove Remove the answers to questions that people wouldn't immediately ask. But that they might wonder about later. So, there's no presence of Jim's mum. We don't know whatever happened to her. The script does have a presence there. It does explain what happened. But actually it was more powerful to have that removed. With Fetty, there was a backstory. You could see the family that he was living with. And, um, that it wasn't Uh, it [00:15:00] was, it wasn't where he was supposed to be in his world. And, uh, he only would speak in the original script. He would speak Maori to his father. His father was a, his stepfather was , couldn't understand, but Fitty would never speak to him in English. So it was, he was fucking toxic family relationship. But actually he has a line in the film which says, I go home when I have to. And that carries everything for every one of us who. Home was not safe and not good. We [00:15:30] often went to other places or we dreamed of other places and we came home to live in those, in the difficult places. And so that's, that's how I dealt with him. So he's more enigmatic, but absolutely present. To be out in a small town, a small town New Zealand, I mean, must take incredible courage and self confidence. Where do you think, particularly for Whetu, where do you think that comes from? That's a, I hate people who say that's a good question, but it's a good [00:16:00] question, fuck it. So, um, so I don't think it's just small towns. I think that cities have a complacent, um, ignorance of of homophobia that exists in them. It exists right in the center of towns, right in the center of cities. Um, I chose a small town because I love small towns, and I have a, uh, a close I don't like how they get munted and made into gimmicks, even though [00:16:30] Pirao can be a shit of a place in the film. But it also has Wonderful example of rural policing. Wonderful example of a Māori doctor who puts family before the individual. Those little things are all there, and those are what I remember of small towns. But, um, it's uh, um, The truth is, so when you look at the film, It's hard to put your finger on when it's happening. It could be 30 years ago, it could be 20, [00:17:00] it could be And then you realise from this, the mobile devices, it's right now. But it's timeless because those ideas are timeless and they still happen. So, trying to get our young adult men to report rape It's almost impossible in this country. And because the statistics aren't there, we create an illusion for ourselves that doesn't happen, just like we did with family violence years ago. So, more of our men will come forward now about being sexually abused as children, but [00:17:30] for an adult man to talk about being raped in a small town, that's an incredibly difficult line to cross, especially if you live in that town. And so, I wanted to, I wanted to tell that story. It's the only time I've ever seen in any film where queer bashing is actually dealt with for what it is. And so it's not being, having your arm broken or punched in the stomach. It's a sexual assault. And um, but [00:18:00] that could happen. I worked with one of my students just a few years ago who arrived into work having been queer bashed in Ponsonby. And I didn't recognize him. He was so bruised and so swollen. And, and all he said was, I fucking fought back and started crying. You watch Fetu fight in this film, he fucking fights back. And I, I think, we, we have, it's dealt with directly in the film. That [00:18:30] we have a veneer that we put over everything which goes, In New Zealand, it's, everything's fine, it's lovely. And it is, there are some lovely things here. Um, and we have come a long way. But not evenly for everybody. And, and the film doesn't go, uh, it's great everywhere else except manky small towns, it doesn't. Or, um, it's all really nice except, um, for, um, one or two [00:19:00] bad eggs, because you actually see a teacher in it who really thinks he's being liberal and kind. But actually for any gay man hearing the line that he delivers, you just go fuck off. So, but for all of that, it's still hopeful and celebratory of the fact that, you know, love endures and it triumphs even whether it's between a dad and son or two men. And, you know, our first, our first loves were all clunky. They were all [00:19:30] clunky. You know, if we can look back on them and go, oh shit. And it kind of does that. It just goes, in fact, the film without doing a spoiler on it is really. One man's tribute to first love, but his first love was with another man. And, and it was, you know, they're very formative in our lives. I don't think it has much to do with sexuality. It has to do with us coming to terms with what love actually is. It's a very powerful thing. It's not just playing. [00:20:00] Playing's easy, you know, or relatively easy. Love's hard, love's tougher, you know, and wonderful, of course. I was trying to think earlier today of all the queer feature length films produced in New Zealand. And I was struggling to be honest. I mean, like, how many, what are the queer feature films in New Zealand? So, actually, although people talk about that there is queer cinema in New [00:20:30] Zealand, What they often refer to as queer characters who have appeared in other films. So often we, we, uh, we take the role of a support character, or it's a documentary about somebody and the fact that they're queer, they appear in it. But when you go feature films that, that focus not on bisexuality, and not on child, a child coming of age through into their sexuality, but a serious in depth understanding of [00:21:00] Men who accept that they're gay, this would be the first. This would be the first that I can find, and we've looked. We've looked. That doesn't say that all those other contributions are really important, and this is only making another contribution to something that, you know, if you were interviewing someone in 20 years, we'd hope we'd go, there are eight of these. It's wonderful. I'm not trying to say that this is, that that makes this significant, other than. There is [00:21:30] a difference between being the token character on the fringe of a Disney animation, or a cardboard cut out gay character on a television soap, and characters whose relationship is central and the substance of a feature film in New Zealand. possibly just points to how hard it is to achieve what you've [00:22:00] achieved because I mean the stories are out there it's just it's a huge long slog like I mean you were saying 15 years of going to the funders. Absolutely and And, you know, one of the things you're dodging, and I guess it's, it's our, our people who come now, they will be dodging, is this awful tick box, virtue signalling thing going, well, we'll do one gay film, so will it be your one, you know, but what actually gets made is the ones that fit, that kind of tick the box beautifully, you know, whereas, [00:22:30] I mean, you imagine trying to make a film about a gay white supremacist in New Zealand. So, That would be a difficult film to get across the line. I'm sure they exist, and I'm sure I'm not interested in making that film. But, you know, we, our people are on the full spectrum of who New Zealanders are. And as we, when we are anxiously, as a nation, anxiously trying to tick boxes, we actually narrow the parameters down on what we [00:23:00] accept. So even in this film, I ran into I just have to say unsolicited advice from people about not including some of the stuff in it. Fuck it, it's there, you know. But it was, it was well meaning. But the question was, you know, would audiences, will it have wider appeal if you do that? And you go, but this is actually what he would say. This is what he would say. And they go, well, is it really necessary? And you go, yes, because this is what he would say. [00:23:30] And so I, I held to that. And that, that costs time, you know, and, but it's there, and I mean, we'll look back in 30 years and go well it was a story of its time. Of course it is, because every story is a story of its time. But maybe the things that actually will resonate will cross time. And those are the authenticity of relationships within it. And so it's worth pushing it against the grain to make sure that they get in there. Speaking of relationships, uh, you've teamed up again [00:24:00] with producer Robin Murphy, who is co producer in this, um, in this film. What's it like to, uh, build on those collaborations, uh, project after project? Robin and I are very different people. But I always remember when I couldn't find a producer for Sparrow, Robin came forward. And, um, so I'm a man who places great Respect on loyalty. I think it's an important thing. It's an [00:24:30] under, I think it's a misconsidered thing. And often times, um, not really held up as a deep value, but she came through and was prepared to support something. Very different kind of the kind of film she produces so she comes from the Murphys with Goodbye Pork Pie She comes from a comedy room and she she loves comedy So my stuff is about as far away from comedy as you can get. It's bloody poetic drama, you know but Robin she [00:25:00] One of the thing, one of the things that worked for us is that she didn't tell me how to direct my film and I didn't tell her how to produce it. So there was a mutual respect there. And one of the things that I always find difficult in directing film is when you get somebody else who, whether they are an actor or um, uh, A DOP or a producer who wants to direct the film and you go, no, I will respect what you do, and where those two things come together, let's talk but don't. Don't try and make my [00:25:30] film, and I won't try and do your part of it. And, um, and so we generally had a, have kept a, uh, a respectful, we've been respectful of each other's territory, and that's proved helpful. The production has happened, um, all the way through the COVID 19 pandemic. How has that affected, uh, well, life, I guess? Well, so, here's something people won't know. We were so [00:26:00] scared that this, this, this could easily have been derailed. If, if, if COVID had come in, we wouldn't have a film. We made a, a stab at a window believing it could be there. It was November, uh, October, November, December, in New Zealand where we had a little window. We shot the film the next layer up, so it was level two, so we shot at level three, and if it was level one, we'd shoot at level two. So we brought Tim Roth out. He was prepared to come to New Zealand, because at the moment it was [00:26:30] Trumpian America, and there were bushfires outside his house in California. And, um, but we were watching, because if, if it had have struck, We had no facility for saving the film. He would have to go back to America. We couldn't afford to bring him back out again. We had, um, our actors were, they had to isolate during the whole, so these are two 17 year old, well actually, a little older than 17, but in the film they're 17. No parties, no [00:27:00] going out. We had, if you got even slightly sick, you had to isolate. We had some crew. Sealed in their cars, working on their computers while we were on set. We, we put scenes together because we had to shoot in bubbles. The classroom scene, that's got two meter social distancing. People don't realize when they watch it, but it does. The boxing scene, we had to put in bubbles and edit together so it looks like a small crowd. It's a very dark room as a result. You know, [00:27:30] so we, we, we really, really struggled. And then, when it came time to, to um, Do the post production. We actually did the last special effect on the day that Auckland went into its lockdown. So, and here's the interesting thing. So, I'm what you'd call a lapsed atheist. I try to be an atheist, and sometimes I generally try to, but I've got gaps. It is a gap. So scared, I went to a mate [00:28:00] of mine, and I said, would you bless the film? And so we had a pōhiri at the beginning and Tim had literally just come out of his hotel room. We went to the marae and, uh, and Robert Pōhiri blessed the film. It was blessed. It was blessed. We, even to the things like, I am obsessively preoccupied with New Zealand's cloudy skies. So we had to do that between showers on a schedule [00:28:30] that was so tight. And we were ducking in and out. Under shelter and then rushing out and filming the sky just before, just while it was spitting and then coming, we were putting towels over the windscreens of, of cars. We were doing, but we got it. We got this amazing light that this country has. And it was like we were dodging bullets running across a field and we were looked after. And so I, I always look at the film as a kind of wonder. [00:29:00] That. It actually got made and it was, and we just took a gamble and then tried to be as strategic as we could within that. You've lived with this story for years, decades, and so you would know it completely intimately. What's it like for you now, now that it's been released, sitting in an audience and seeing and hearing the reaction of the audience who are seeing it for the first time? [00:29:30] So. Every audience is different with the film. When we had the premiere in Auckland, 2, 500 people showed up to that. It was sold out, you know. And amongst them, there were a lot of gay men, because there was a lot of laughter, at lines that nobody else had thought were funny. And it's not that they're funny, it's just that they go, you just go, that is so true. And so people were responding to it. And there's quite a bit of crying, you know, because it's, parts are difficult. [00:30:00] And there's a few winces when things happen, and you go, fuck. You know, the game end could see something was coming when other people couldn't. So you could feel your family in the cinema, in where there's a lot of your family. Um, the, it's, the film, when I watch it, is never the same any time through. It's never the same. And so, um, and I just accept that [00:30:30] that will be how it will always be because it speaks to different people in different ways, you know. And there will be, of course the film's banned. It's going to be banned in Russia. It will never be allowed to play in China. It'll never be able to play in a lot of African countries. So we know that, but I'm already used to that from the short films. But you still sort of go, you know, The audiences who will never be able to see it, or may see it smuggled in on some sharing platform, you know, so I [00:31:00] wonder about the absence of audiences who I'll never know, and that will never help me craft my next film, because I will never be embodied inside that place.
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