Sandra Reid
Sandra Reid - Programmer of the New Zealand International Film Festival -on the growth of the festival and the path her career has followed:
"The New Zealand International Film Festival has grown from an event showing seven films in 1972 to become a popular annual nationwide festival that now presents upwards of a 100 programmes of works of all genres - features, documentary, short, animation and experimental films - from around the world. It is overseen by the New Zealand Film Festival Trust, and in my experience is unique, in that it consists of sixteen festivals that begin in Auckland in July, which then tour throughout the country, finishing in Whangerei, in the upper North Island, in November. To my knowledge, it also has the smallest staff (4 full-time employees) of any event of its kind operating on this scale. Believing that film culture plays a major part in cultural life generally, the NZIFF is committed to presenting local audiences with a broad range of cinema experience; many of the films on its programme never see any other kind of 'release' in New Zealand. Changes in film viewing platforms and delivery pose new challenges to film festivals, but also reinforce the uniqueness of the film festival experience. Being a programmer has never been more exciting."
Sandra Reid's passion for cinema began at an early age, providing access to other stories, worlds, realms far different from the experiences on offer when and where she was growing up. Before becoming the Programmer at the New Zealand International Film Festival in the mid-1990s, Sandra worked as a film and theatre actor and costume designer in New Zealand and France. Sandra moved to Paris in the 1980s, where she was involved with experimental and avant-garde film cooperative Lightcone and became a total cinephile. Ten years and thousands of films later, she was back in Wellington, New Zealand, where she joined the New Zealand International Film Festival crew. After a five year stint there, she returned to Paris, where she combines her programming work - which takes her to film festivals throughout Europe, and back to the NZIFF headquarters in Wellington - with being a freelance translator and interpreter.
October 2009
