Teen comedy GBF is one of the opening night films After a year of planning, the team which has brought the Out Takes film festival back to Christchurch is delighted opening day has finally arrived. Tonight’s gala evening at Sumner’s Hollywood 3 Cinema will mark the first time the festival has been in town since the city’s devastating earthquakes. Buy tickets here “If the turnout at our fundraiser at the start of May, with 130-something buying tickets, there’s clearly a lot of enthusiasm for the festival to come back. It’s another sign of comeback in Christchurch basically,” co-convenor of the Christchurch leg of the festival Walt Abell says. He got involved when the over convenor Nancy Higgins asked for people to help bring the event back. “That was almost a year ago. So we’ve been working on it for a year,” he reflects. Abell says Out Takes probably couldn’t have returned before this year, as there has been major roading disruption on the route to Sumner, which has finally been sorted. “It doesn’t feel like it’s such an arduous journey to go out to Sumner anymore. And besides, the cinemas in town, apart from the main Hoyts things, they just aren’t big enough to screen for a reasonable number of people.” Port Hills MP Ruth Dyson will open the event, and opening night films will be teen comedy GBF and lesbian comedy Heterosexual Jill. There will be a dozen screening sessions, and organisers say they have been selected to appeal to a broad audience. Of course people need to attend for the festival to come back again. “We’ve been pushing that line quite hard, without saying ‘you have to do this or else’. What we’ve been doing instead is offering things like a four session discount and a group booking discount. We’re trying to get awareness up about it as it’s quite short this year, it’s only four days because it’s a trial run getting back to the city,” Abell says, “But people need to support it. And there’s something for everybody. There’s gay films, there’s lesbian films, there’s documentaries, there’s short films, there’s even one R18 film called I’m a Pornstar about the gay porn industry. So there’s something there, even though there’s only 12 sessions, there’s something for everybody. And we just encourage people to come along and take advantage of what’s on offer.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 12th June 2014 - 10:30am