Florian Habicht’s new feature documentary Rubbings From a Live Man has completed shooting. His previous films include Kaikohe Demolition and Woodenhead.
Rubbings From a Live Man is a striking, intimate portrait of performing artist and director Warwick Broadhead, whose one-man shows The Hunting of the Snark and The Selfish Giant have toured throughout New Zealand as well as overseas.
Habicht, and his long time collaborator cinematographer Christopher Pryor, began shooting in September 2007.
‘I met Warwick by chance seven years ago when I sold him a video camera. Since then we have become friends, and I cast him as Hugo, the eccentric dump boss, in Woodenhead. The thing that I, and others who know him, love about spending time with Warwick is that it’s always full of surprises, and that he makes you feel really alive. This great feeling, combined with the incredible facts of his life, are what initially drew me to making a film based on his story.’
Habicht connects strongly with the fact that his subject has lived and worked outside the mainstream for forty years.
‘I moved to New Zealand as a young boy from Berlin – looking really different from all the local kids and knowing very little English…I became accepted though making art. I really remember that! Warwick has also struggled as an outsider wanting to be true to himself. I like the idea that I have made a documentary on a mainly Maori community in Kaikohe, and now a story about an older gay artist. Being an outsider can be tough, but it gives you a different, and sometimes clearer, perspective on the world.’
Producer Philippa Campbell (Rain, No.2, Black Sheep) is delighted that the film has secured financing from the New Zealand Film Commission and will be distributed locally by Arkles Entertainment. It’s her first foray into feature documentary making.
‘Florian has already proved himself to be one of the most daring and original emerging feature filmmakers in New Zealand. I was immediately drawn to the fact that this is a very strongly felt story, and I love the relationship between the real and the imagined that has emerged in the film. There’s a great integrity to the collaboration between Florian and Warwick and it’s guaranteed to take audiences on a pretty wild ride. For me too, being involved in such a handmade filmmaking process has been very stimulating.’
Rubbings From a Live Man will be completed mid 2008. International sales are being handled by Kathleen Drumm from NZ Film.
http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/
[release from the NZFC]