The Edge - Jane Campion interview
This 1993 interview from the first series of arts show The Edge screened while The Piano was in Kiwi cinemas. Earlier that year Jane Campion had become the first (and only) female director to share the top award at the Cannes Film Festival. Here, she discusses the antipodean character of her next project ( The Portrait of a Lady) and the satisfaction of offering Nicole Kidman a role that isn’t “like a handbag to one of the male stars”. She also muses on working in Hollywood versus her hometown Sydney, and the influence of a New Zealand upbringing on forming her imagination.
Cannes '92
Cannes is the place where art meets schlock on the French Riviera. A year before Jane Campion's The Piano shared the festival's top prize, NZ-made documentary Cannes '92 managed to snare almost everyone standing, from Voight to Van Damme — including NZ entrants Alison Maclean (with her movie Crush) and Nicky Marshall (Mon Desir). Vincent Ward mentions the 14 companies involved in his Map of the Human Heart. Baz Luhrmann promotes Strictly Ballroom; Paul Verhoeven completely forgets the question after his Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone interrupts proceedings with a kiss.
Miranda Harcourt
Miranda Harcourt's career has seen many notable excursions into screen work — from finding early fame on beloved soap Gloss to ambitious big screen drama For Good, which she acted in and helped produce. In 2017 she made fantasy The Changeover, with her husband Stuart McKenzie. As an acting coach, Harcourt has worked with everyone from Melanie Lynskey to Nicole Kidman.
Bridget Armstrong
Dunedin-born Bridget Armstrong has found success in a range of British and Kiwi stage and screen roles. At 18 she joined the touring NZ Players, where she recreated characters as diverse as Anne Frank and Elizabeth I. Later in London, Armstrong showed her comedic talents and played Katherine Mansfield for the BBC. Back in New Zealand she acted on TV's Gather Your Dreams and Roger Hall film Middle Age Spread.
Lesley Vanderwalt
Kiwi hair and makeup artist Lesley Vanderwalt won an Oscar and a Bafta for her work on Mad Max: Fury Road. She also collaborated with director George Miller on Babe 2, Nicole Kidman mini-series Bangkok Hilton and the second Mad Max movie. The onetime Wellington hairdresser had makeup duties on early Kiwi classics The Governor, Skin Deep and Bad Blood, before a slew of Australian credits (Shine, Moulin Rouge!).
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is one of the most dynamic — and applauded — filmmakers to emerge from Australasia. Campion's CV includes Cannes-winning road trip Peel, An Angel at My Table, based on the life of writer Janet Frame, and award-winning mini-series Top of the Lake. With her twisted settler romance The Piano (1993), she became the first woman to take the top award at the Cannes Film Festival.