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Synopsis

Katherine Mansfield, a rare New Zealand writer to achieve international renown, left for Europe as a 19-year-old. This doco examines her complicated relationships with her family and homeland, her turbulent personal life, her writing (credited with changing the course of the English short story) and her early death in France in 1923, at age 34. Shot in five countries and presented by Catherine Wilkin, it includes excerpts from interviews with her companion, Ida Baker (from 1974) and biographer Claire Tomalin. Ilona Rogers reads from Mansfield’s writings.

Credits (12)

 Julienne Stretton
 Sue Kedgley

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Comments (1)

 Max Power

Max Power | website

I think this is the documentary that is shown in the KM house in Wellington.

I am glad that it has finally been posted.

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Included in:

 NZ Book Month Collection

Quotes

How many women, in 1908, would have been prepared to leave a wealthy middle class New Zealand family, go 11,000 miles to the other side of the world to live a bohemian life in London because they believed in their ability to create art? 
I want, for one moment, to make our undiscovered country leap into the eyes of the Old World. But all must be told with a sense of mystery, a radiance, an afterglow. 

Awards

1988 National Educational Film and Video Festival (USA)
Best Language and Arts Broadcast (Golden Apple)