Stewart Main

Stewart Main's career spans three decades, during which time he has distinguished himself with some provocative and challenging films about sexual identity and Kiwi society.

His work is characterised by attention to expressive imagery and expressive editing.

Main began in film with a variety of jobs both on set, and in the editing suite. He was an assistant editor on early classic Sleeping Dogs, and went on to work as a boom operator (sound technician) and assistant director on a number of feature film shoots.

In 1980 Main played a major creative role on car film Queen Street, including co-writing the script with director Martin Blythe. Three years later he directed Race against Time, a documentary about racism in New Zealand.

By now Main had met longtime collaborator, writer/filmmaker Peter Wells. Main edited a number of Wells' early short films, starting with 1980's Foolish Things. The two shared a mission to portray an authentic gay sensibility on film.

They collaborated on gay coming of age drama, My First Suit in 1985. This film was part of the About Face anthology series, made to showcase emerging talents. Directed by Main from a Wells screenplay, the film displayed a light, confident touch.

The following year the pair co-directed the 50-minute A Death in the Family, one of the first dramas to examine the tragedy of Aids. The film won awards in Los Angeles and Toronto. Main also brought his editing skills to two Wells-directed films that mixed architecture and flamboyant imagery, The Newest City on the Globe and The Mighty Civic.

In 1993 they co-directed their first feature film Desperate Remedies, a period melodrama which featured a showstopping performance by Jennifer Ward-Lealand.

Said Main at the time: "We were after the heightened reality of melodrama. And the great melodramas offer a kind of release [...]. You start off laughing and then end up crying, deeply moved, almost ashamed in a way to be so seduced by something your logic resists. This is what makes melodrama so enjoyable."

Many agreed: Desperate Remedies quickly sold to more than 25 countries. Screen International praised it as "an exuberant Victorian bodice ripper", while Variety's David Stratton noted the enthusiasm of early audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, and called it "a feast for the eyes and eyes". Reviewers for The Dominion and North and South both praised the film for staking out new ground from Kiwi realist traditions.

In 1996 Main directed Sunday TV drama One of Them!, adapted by Wells from his own novella. The film tells a tale of two 60s teens coming to terms with their sexuality, in the days before gay liberation.

Main has also directed (solo) a number of documentaries. Among them are Captive State (1986) which sought to expressively link the issue of torture and human rights abuse in east Timor, with political apathy in New Zealand; God, Sreenu, and Me, (2000) which playfully documents a search for spiritual meaning during a year Main spent in India; The Magic Within (2003, aka Make or Break) chronicles a theatre course for troubled teens run by actor Jim Moriarty . The feature-length TV doco won an NZ Peace Foundation award.

Meanwhile Main's 35mm short Twilight of the Gods (1995), was an erotically-charged fable about race and sexuality, featuring rising talent Marton Csokas. It won high praise at international film festivals, competing for best short at Berlin.

Main has worked occasionally as a director for hire, helming episodes of popular TV shows Hercules and Xena (including 1996 flashback episode 'Death Mask').

Main completed his first solo feature in 2005. 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous is based on the novel by South Islander Graeme Aitken. Main and cinematographer Simon Raby battled bad weather to capture this serio-comic story, based around a 70s-era farmer's son imagining himself some place very different to Central Otago. 

Sources include
Michele Fantl, 'Having Fab time - wish you were here' (Interview) - Onfilm, March 2004 (Volume 21, Number 2, Page 12)
David Stratton, 'Desperate Remedies' (Review) - Variety, 7 June 1993
Desperate Remedies Press Kit
50 Ways of Saying Fabulous Press Kit