NZIFF: Michael Smither: Portraits

It's the next Michael Smither documentary (we're up to seven of ten) with Portraits.

This follows Michael as he creates a series of portraits. He used to do them, but was just following a formula. Now he actually seeing them as human heads with their own properties to bring out. (He was inspired to create these as a reaction to seeing the emotions on people who's heads were to be cut off by terrorists.) We mainly see him paint the local doctor, but there are other paintings as well. Including one of himself. And despite seeing many of these done, there are still more to go.

Afterwards we had the director Tony Hiles at the screening answering questions. Although he pointed out that Michael Smither was in the audience, and so never mind Tony, we asked questions of Michael instead. Neat! And a bonus for attending the actual screening.

This was quite short, being just about some of the portraits, so it was quite a concentrated story. As such, it did feel very short, especially compared with the other movies I've seen this festival, but that'll work better when the entire set is available.

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