Arts & Film

With “11 & 12” and “Theoremat” the festival provided two outstanding plays by two major international directors. One by a director who has changed the face of theatre over the last half century and the other who will probably change theatre over the next half century.

Next week Auckland audiences get to see the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s new triple bill of “From Here to There” which premiered in Dunedin last month. The three works combine light and fluffy with dramatic and analytical.

The French manage to make films about personal and family problems without getting too maudlin or cheesy.

Two of the exhibitions at the NZ International Festival have light as a major aspect of the work. Daniel K Brown’s show at the Museum of Wellington City and Sea uses light as a way of creating a sense of history and myth while Anthony McCall’s exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery uses light as a cross between drawing and sculpture.

The Academy Awards ignored the biggest box office film of the year, if not of all time (on an inflation-adjusted basis), in favour of an arthouse movie that hardly anyone has seen except the critics.