Vincent Ward: a very original filmmaker...

Interview – 2008

Vincent Ward has won an international reputation as one of New Zealand's most original and visionary filmmakers. Vigil and The Navigator played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Kiwi films to do so). During his time in Hollywood, Ward made ambitious afterlife drama What Dreams May Come.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Ward talks about:

Experimental filmmaking at art school
The evolution of his acclaimed documentary In Spring One Plants Alone, and the time he spent with the characters in the film
Being a writer by necessity in his career because he can't usually find the kind of stories he wants to film
Watching decade-spanning movie Map of the Human Heart in Poland, and thinking it stood up better than expected
How the idea of making a follow-up to In Spring One Plants Alone haunted him for years, until he made Rain of the Children
Being encouraged by the positive response to the film
Getting his storytelling genes from his parents, who both had dramatic wartime experiences and stories to tell

This video was first uploaded on 19 November 2008, 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 - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

...I decided to make Rain Of The Children mainly because the subject of the original documentary I'd made sort of plagued me; it haunted me. And I couldn't get things about that woman out of my mind. There were questions that I couldn't answer, and I wanted to find out the answers.
– Vincent Ward on revisiting the subject of his 1980 documentary In Spring One Plants Alone in 2008 film Rain Of The Children

Vincent's Full Profile