Synopsis

This is a personal story of an unassuming New Zealander – a South Island West Coaster whose art work is instantly recognised in New Zealand and around the world.

Within the film industry Alun Bollinger is something of a legend, yet remains anonymous on the street;

Says actor Sam Neil: “I’ve known him since the Acme Sausage Company days. He wasn’t wearing any shoes then either. I not only know him very well, and like him very much, but also much of the history of New Zealand cinema is his history too."

Media Notes

The New Zealand Film Archive records 106 entries under the name Alun Bollinger.  He is a veritable icon, with credits in features spanning 29 years – from Sleeping Dogs ( Grip, 1978)  to River Queen ( Director of Photography 2005).  He is a recipient of the New Zealand Laureate Award - the highest achievement in New Zealand Art Awards.

At the age of 60, he and wife Helen have 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild. Home is Blackspoint a remote and tiny settlement on the outskirts of Reefton on South Island’s West Coast.  It’s a family compound with 3 houses dotted in a park-like setting.  “Whenever I go away I miss the place and work has been a balance of the two.”   Bollinger is something of a renaissance man.  He draws his identity from a world wider than the film industry.  He is a family man, house designer, builder, bee keeper. His mode of transport is a retired ambulance.  

AlBol is also active in the politics of the industry, as president of the New Zealand Film and Video Technicians Guild.   

He has pioneered and today leads those who give New Zealand film crews an international reputation as skilled and innovative craftsmen.
“I like being a minimalist. I suppose it’s because I’ve been bought up in the shoe string school of film-making”

Bollinger lives simply, where and how he wishes, and yet is internationally respected for the skills that have taken him to the very top of his discipline.

Crew List

Director, Producer: Gerard Smyth
Line Producer: Alice Shannon
Editor: Gaylene Barnes
Research: Nadia Maxwell, Helen Smyth, Carrie Jo Caralyus
Camera: Jake Bryant, Wayne Vinten, John Chrisstoffels, Gerard Smyth
Sound: Tim Brott, Brian Shennan, Hammond Peek, Benoit Hardonniere
Interviewer: Gerard Smyth
Production Company: Frank Film

Reviews

TV1’s Barefoot Cinema: The Art and Life of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger did another bashful hero proud. Bollinger all but invented New Zealand – or at least a luminous, sinewy, sometimes slightly psychotic vision of it – in landmark movies such as Goodbye Pork Pie, Vigil, Heavenly Creatures, The Piano and River Queen. Of course, we’ve never heard much about him, which made this documentary a delight and a useful, understated slice of cultural history.
He started in news, filming such events as US President Lyndon B Johnson’s visit to our shores in the 60s. But Bollinger was soon off, partaking in the archetypal rite of passage of the 60s Kiwi male: “I bought a great big motorbike and rode off into the wilderness.”
“AlBol” and his family were inmates of the Snoring Waters commune at Waimarama, along with such fellow pioneers of local cinema as Bruno Lawrence and Geoff Murphy. Filtering through Bollinger’s story was a whiff of redemption for what is, these days, a routinely maligned generation.
It pays to be reminded that we wouldn’t be where we are today if these lunatics hadn’t worked for virtually nothing – building sets, blowing them up, reinventing the wheel – to make a local industry from scratch.
Bollinger and his wife live among chooks and grandchildren in Reefton, where he continues to work and give a bit of much-needed gloss to the notion of the ageing hippie. “He’s calm, he’s relaxed, he doesn’t wear shoes,” noted Peter Jackson. “What more could you want?”  -Diana Witchel NZ Listener.

This is the great story of a man who whilst known in his sphere of influence, is not to the rest of us.  One hell of an interesting life, but on a different path to most of us.
Don’t miss it -“Flicks.co.nz”

Filmmaker Gerard Smyth turns his camera on Alun Bollinger whose own camera has been informing the way we New Zealanders see ourselves for almost 40 years. Geoff Murphy’s Goodbye Pork Pie, Vincent Ward’s Vigil, Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures and Gaylene Preston’s Perfect Strangers, amongst his many credits, are superbly photographed films by any standard and each of them carries the distinctive signature of its director. All four auteurs express their admiration here and impart some flavour of the crucial collaborations involved, starting with the difficulty of ever luring the man they all call AlBol away from his South Island West Coast home. AlBol meanwhile discusses creativity as if it’s a mere matter of practicality enlivened by the occasional flash of ingenuity. Smyth’s portrait of the artist as unassuming alt-lifestyle Kiwi bloke is also a valentine to the four decades of marriage that began after AlBol and Helen – HelBol – had known each other exactly three days. Existing admirers should be delighted by Smyth’s tribute, and the unfamiliar captivated.
Bill Gosden, New Zealand Film Festival

Christchurch filmmaker Gerard Smyth’s portrait of the man the film world knows as “AlBol”. Much in keeping with the man himself, the doco is a “charming and easygoing portrait one of our great cinematographers”, said critic Peter Calder in the NZ Herald. Smyth spent time at the home of Alun and his wife, Helen(“HelBol”), at Blacks Point, near Reefton, and the film is as much a portrait of their relationship as it is Bollinger’s extraordinary career. He has been involved in all the milestone New Zealand films and many more besides: Sleeping Dogs, Goodbye Pork Pie and Vigil, through to Heavenly Creatures, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and River Queen. “In reprising some of the cinematographer’s finest moments,” said Calder, “the film gives us a compact history of the Kiwi cinema that AlBol was instrumental in inventing.”  -Fiona Ray New Zealand Listener.
The full title of Barefoot Cinema: The Art and Life of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger may be almost as long as the 74-minute film itself, but there's nothing long-winded about this charming and easygoing portrait of one of our great cinematographers. The first word in the title alludes to Bollinger's disdain for footwear - "Going barefoot keeps one in touch with the earth we walk on," he once wrote to the Listener - but it also references the down-to-earth, can-do style of a self-taught artist who has shot everything from Goodbye Pork Pie to River Queen.
Christchurch filmmaker Gerard Smyth has spent a lot of time at the Bollingers' home at Blacks Point, near Reefton, with the happy and apt result that AlBol's wife Helen is equally the film's star.

In reprising some of the cinematographer's finest moments (and providing a more-than-useful primer of the art and science of his trade), the film gives us a compact history of the Kiwi cinema that AlBol was instrumental in inventing. But it is pre-eminently a portrait of a uniquely New Zealand archetype - the greenie, good, keen man - and it shows his work on the big screen it deserves.
Peter Calder, New Zealand Herald.

Purchase

The Life and Art of Cinematographer Alun Bollinger.

A feature documentary by Gerard Smyth, commissioned by Television New Zealand, with assistance from the New Zealand Film Commission.

School and Personal Use        - $32.95 inc postage/GST
Public Libraries/ Tertiary       - $80 inc postage/GST

TWO METHODS OF PAYMENT

Either;
Pay by cheque.
Send cheque and DVD delivery address (street address, not box number, for courier) to DVD order @ Frank Film, 312 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch 8011.

Or;
Pay by Internet.
Frank Film; kiwi bank a/c no 38 9008 0341206 00.
Add your name to this payment.
Email gerard(at)frankfilm.co.nz and confirming your payment, and supplying delivery street address for courier.                         
Phone +64 021 2 245 123 or +64 3 365 4895

Director’s statement

This story started as a seemingly obvious task; a potted and recent history of New Zealand film through the eyes of the man universally known as ‘AlBol.’

But any such tale had to be much more than this. Says the man from the remote South Island’s West Coast; “There is much more to life than film making.”  

‘Barefoot Cinema’ is as much a tale of enduring love.  

Says Helen ‘HelBol’ Bollinger, wife of 37 years “I always picked it would be an adventure with AlBol.”  And an adventure it has been.  They married after knowing each other for three days. They are great grandparents whilst still in their 50s.

And at the same time, AlBol has found time to become somebody Peter Jackson tells us is “quiet simply the finest cinematographer the country has ever produced.” Says AlBol, “I am not really a film buff, I have never read a book on filmmaking.”
Not known for following film crew fashion, AlBol turns up on film sets barefoot.  Here he is regarded as a leader of New Zealand crews who are internationally known for their innovations and for their skills as team players.  The country's top directors all wanted to participate and tell of their gratitude to their team leader.

Peter Jackson shows us what he calls, “the most important footage I have ever shot. AlBol is quite simply the finest cameraman this country has ever produced.”
Geoff Murphy finds the original Good Bye Pork Pie yellow mini and remembers the days when the road was the teacher.
Vincent Ward speaks for the first time of the difficulties on the set of ‘River Queen.’
Long time friend Gaylene Preston speaks of a 30-year association and adds “I have never known a time when AlBol wanted to go to work.”
And that’s the thing about Bollinger. He is the adored and legendary cinematographer who much prefers to stay at home.