Roger Horrocks: recognising film as an art form…

Interview – 2018

Academic and writer Roger Horrocks has mentored many figures in the New Zealand screen industry. Horrocks began teaching film studies at Auckland University in the 1970s, at a time when film was looked down on by academics. He helped launch the Auckland Film Festival (precursor to the New Zealand International Film Festival), was a founding board member of funding body NZ On Air, and has worked on many documentaries with his partner, director and producer Shirley Horrocks.

In this ScreenTalk interview Horrocks talks about:

How going to see movies as a kid first got him interested in films
Working on an extremely low budget for early feature Skin Deep
Battling opposition to set up the first film studies course at Auckland University
The value of film history in the age before video and DVD
Writing the libretto for an opera about legendary artist and filmmaker Len Lye
Successfully launching the precursor to the NZ International Film Festival
How the original board of NZ On Air were fanatical about getting more local content
Remembering the time when New Zealand culture was rarely visible
How film can give minorities a voice in mainstream culture

This video was first uploaded on 22 May 2018, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

It was quite a battle, because the professors at the university could not see film studies as a legitimate subject. It seemed to be something that you just did for fun; you know, how can you study film? Well I finally persuaded them . . . it fairly rapidly became the MA course, the biggest graduate course at the university, which was of course what they were afraid of, becauase they felt it was going to take students away from the 'real' subjects...
– Roger Horrocks on launching the film studies course at Auckland University

Roger's Full Profile