International partnerships
Introduction |
Background |
Sister cities |
Friendship cities |
Strategic alliance |
Strategic environment |
Key themes |
Covec report |
Brisbane |
Busan |
Fukuoka |
Guangzhou |
Hamburg |
Los Angeles |
Shinagawa |
Tomioka |
Study visits
| Features
Features
Reel success for Auckland and Guangzhou
The Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival (GZDOC) is the largest documentary film festival in China and last year the Documentary New Zealand Trust (DOCNZ), with support from Auckland City Council and Film Auckland, secured New Zealand as the focus country.
Auckland and Guangzhou formed an international partnership in 1989 and achieving this outcome is testimony to the collaborative work that is being done to support sectors such as creative industries.
The New Zealand focus at GZDOC included profiling at key events during the festival, promotional material for the 400 delegates, speaking engagements and other networking opportunities.
"GZDOC was a great opportunity to profile Auckland's film industry internationally. We have received a number of enquiries as a result and it has built a strong foundation to create coproduction opportunities," commented Michael Brook, Film Auckland executive manager.
The country focus will be reciprocated at next month's Documentary Edge Forum (formerly DOCNZ summit), which runs from 1-3 March 2010. The China focus features a spotlight on Guangzhou.
"This year's films are thought-provoking and have all been carefully curated. For our China focus, we have been greatly assisted by GZDOC organisers, who have helped source some of the films," remarked Alex Lee, Documentary Edge Festival Co-director.
A networking function, which is being organised and hosted by Auckland City Council will allow local filmmakers, producers and directors to meet eminent international contacts such as Ms Lei Hong and Mr Shaowen Ho from GZDOC.
Other international guests will include Wendy Levy (The Producer's Institute USA), Julia Overton (Screen Australia), James Franklin (Pixeco UK) and other international filmmakers.
View more information regarding the Auckland-Guangzhou international partnership.
For information on next month's see
Documentary Edge Forum and Film
Festival.
Calling all animators!
Seventh Hamburg Animation Award
Aucklanders have already submitted 40 outstanding entries into the competition over the past two years, resulting in three success stories.
In 2008, New Zealand was selected as the profile country for the awards and two Aucklanders travelled to Hamburg to collect their prize money as winners of the special country category.
In 2009, the animated short film 'Time to Fly', created by a group of Auckland students, was awarded third place. Cameron Smith, a member of the winning team from Media Design School, attended the award ceremony in Hamburg to collect the €2000 prize money and participated in a seminar with
'Ice Age 3' co-director Mike Thurmeier.
"I met some talented and creative people on my trip and would encourage people to do whatever they can to be part of this amazing event," says Cameron Smith.
"I'll always look back at my experience at the Hamburg Animation Award as an incredible way to start off my career as a visual effects artist."
Auckland City Council formed a strategic alliance with Hamburg in 2007 to support opportunities for key sectors, and annually promotes the Hamburg Animation Award.
The competition offers over 10,000 Euros in prize money and the opportunity to attend a workshop by a leading animation expert.
Additional prizes for Auckland entries are offered by local industry sponsors.
All Auckland entries will also be profiled at a local film night in July 2010, organised by Auckland City Council.
Applications must be submitted before 24 May 2010 through the Auckland education institute the applicant attended.
For further information, please read the 2010 summary sheet or visit
www.hamburg-animation-award.de.
Guangzhou media make a splash in Auckland!
The primary focus of the media's visit was to produce a TV programme and newspaper supplement showcasing Auckland. Together with Tourism Auckland, the international relations team at Auckland City Council organised a two-day programme for the visiting media.
The programme included visits to the Sky Tower, Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum and a Pride of Auckland sailing cruise, which the group particularly enjoyed.
"The Waitemata Harbour cruise was the highlight of the visit for us. In China, sailing is an exclusive sport that only the very rich can afford. However, here families can enjoy the waterfront at relatively low cost," said Ms Dong Xiaohui from Guangzhou Daily newspaper.
The newspaper's circulation is in the top 30 in the world, while Guangzhou TV has viewing figures of 2 million.
The visiting media programme also included interviews with key city representatives, such as Hon. John Banks QSO, Mayor of Auckland city, Graeme Osborne, Tourism Auckland chief executive officer, local Chinese community members and representatives from Study Auckland and Film Auckland.
"It was a wonderful way for us to showcase Auckland to Guangzhou residents. We hope that such media exposure may encourage more visitors to come to Auckland and New Zealand, and to spend longer in both," Graeme Osborne commented.
The Chinese tourism market has remained relatively strong even in the face of the global downturn.
For the year ended December 2009 New Zealand hosted 102,000 arrivals from China, making China our fourth largest source of inbound arrivals, ahead of Japan.
Both publications will be available in Guangzhou later this year.
Auckland's wine and islands profiled in the United States
Award-winning Los Angeles travel journalist, Rosemary McClure, was in Auckland last year following an invitation from Auckland City Council to join Tourism Auckland's visiting media programme.
Auckland and Los Angeles have a long-standing international partnership, and the media programme is seen as a great way to promote Auckland as a tourist destination to American readers.
Rosemary was particularly interested in Auckland's wine industry, and following her visit to a number of local vineyards, compiled a feature article for the Los Angeles Times in November last year.
The story provided a glowing report of Auckland's wines and island life and was also picked up by The New Hampshire Union Leader (Boston), The Province (Vancouver), The Olympian and The News Tribune (Washington), with a total circulation of 1 million people.
Rosemary also produced a second feature article, focusing on the beauty and uniqueness of the Hauraki Gulf Islands, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times in January 2010.
Read both articles - Rosemary McClure
articles (50 kb) PDF
Rosemary's visit reciprocates an annual journalist fellowship held in Los Angeles, in which two Auckland journalists have participated (2006 and 2008).
The partnership with Los Angeles was Auckland's first international pairing. Signed in 1971 to coincide with Air New Zealand's new service to Los Angeles via Honolulu, the current focus of the relationship is on projects in the sectors of tourism and film.
Upcoming film industry opportunities in our partner cities
Auckland's sister city, Los Angeles, is hosting two great opportunities for the film industry:
- Action/Cut 2010 Short Film Competition, Los Angeles
The Action/Cut Short Film Competition is a unique industry-based international competition offering over 125 substantial career development prizes, valued at USD 50,000. Call for entries closes 15 June. The winners will be announced 1 September 2010. For more information visit
www.actioncut.com.
- AFCI Locations Trade Show, Los Angeles, 15 - 17 April 2010
The AFCI Locations Trade Show is the world's premier trade show for location filmmaking, offering the opportunity to connect with a targeted audience and exchange knowledge on current industry issues. Further information is available on
www.afci.org/events/lts.htm.
Australia calling!
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), its ProjectLink initiative and the Industry Capability Network (ICN) are three key resources for accessing information and registering interest in Australian business opportunities.
These resources are particularly relevant following the Australian government's
AU$42 billion 'nation building' stimulus package, which focuses on infrastructure projects such as energy, public transport, water, hospitals and schools and may provide opportunities for Auckland businesses. The resilience of the Australian economy is well recognised, with the country expected to be one of the world's better performing economies over the next 12-18 months.
ProjectLink is an online subscription service, providing qualified pre-tender business opportunities that are tailored to subscriber needs in the engineering, building and construction and marine industries across Australia.
The ICN promotes New Zealand and Australian companies as project managers for large capital works projects in the southern hemisphere.
For further information, please see:
www.projectlink.co.nz
www.nzte.govt.nz
www.icn.govt.nz
www.economicstimulusplan.gov.au.
Building relationships leads to future sister city
business
The visit was arranged by Auckland City Council's international relations team and hosted by the Busan Foundation for International Activities, part of the Busan Metropolitan Government. The two cities have a sister city relationship spanning 13 years.
Busan, or Pusan as it is known in Korea, is South Korea's second largest city. The population has grown to almost 4 million, living in the valleys between steep pine clad hills or in modern developments near sandy beaches.
Busan boasts one of the five biggest ports in the world and is home to some of the largest ship building yards.
In recent years the city has moved in another direction, positioning itself as the showcase of Asian film-making through the Pusan International Film Festival, a 355 film, 70 country film festival that draws audiences approaching 200,000.
A highlight of the visit was a meeting, filmed for the Korean News Network, with Mr Dong-Ho Kim, the Film Festival Director who explained plans to expand the festival in the future.
"It was a rare opportunity to meet with the founder of the festival," says Michael Brook, Executive Manager of Film Auckland, "these occasions are an important part of building Auckland's profile in Busan."
Associated with the film festival is the Asian Film Market, a place where film makers, buyers and sellers do business. More importantly for Film Auckland was BIFCOM (the Busan International Film Commission and Industry Showcase), a trade show where destinations like Auckland seek to attract film shoots.
Film Auckland collaborated with Film New Zealand and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's Korean Trade Commission to build a stand for attracting producers and it brought results, says
Michael.
"We have a strong lead for a major Korean film production for Auckland," he says, "these kinds of productions bring in millions of dollars, create employment and lift Auckland's profile as a great place to shoot."
Not all business was conducted on the stand, as Michael and Peter met with counterparts and film industry business leaders from Busan.
"We had discussions about business to business collaboration, training, and work experience exchange programmes," says Michael. "These are the kind of links that bring us closer together."
For his part Peter, deputy chair of Film Auckland, says building relationships is what will lead to future business. "The sister city relationship helps us build contacts that we can bring to the industry here in Auckland," he says, "there is already very positive feedback about Auckland, thanks in part to the number of young people who spent time as students here learning English. If we can build on this further, it's good for both cities."
Hamburg internship programme takes off
Martin is the first student to take part in the internship programme developed by council as part of the strategic alliance with Hamburg and in response to requests from German students for internships at council.
When an email was sent to students at his university about the programme, Martin saw a great opportunity to improve his English and gain overseas work experience.
"I wanted to come to New Zealand because I read that it was a nice country to visit. The people here are very friendly and all my colleagues at the council have been very helpful and welcoming," he said.
Martin spends his time at council working in the central area planning team based in the Civic Building
- he's been getting an idea of how city planning is done here in New Zealand and in turn, council staff have been able to learn from him. While in Germany, Martin worked part-time at Hamburg City Planning so he has been able to give council staff an insider's view of how things are done in Europe.
While Martin thinks the two countries approach to city planning is not all that different, he comments that there are a lot more meetings to attend in Hamburg.
"In Hamburg there are more people involved in each project which means a lot of meetings. While this is good in some ways, it also means that there is not as much time to do your work as there is here." He has also noticed that sustainability issues are not as much of a priority when city planning here as they are in Hamburg.
Martin has been able to see a lot of New Zealand in the short time he has been here. As well as working full-time, he's visited Rotorua, spent a weekend at Piha and seen dolphins in the Bay of Islands. He even plans to fit in a weekend trip to Fiji before he flies back to Hamburg on 25 September to finish his Bachelor Degree.
"I've really enjoyed my time in New Zealand. It has been a great learning experience and I really feel at home in Auckland now," says Martin.
"Two months is not long enough to spend here so I'll definitely be back."
Auckland's strategic alliance with Hamburg
In 2007, Auckland signed a strategic alliance with Hamburg to support opportunities for growth in key sectors and to encourage best practice leanings in a variety of areas including city development and sustainability. The strategic alliance is managed by the international relations team.
The internship programme is one of the key activities with Hamburg in 2009.
In February, a Hamburg producer visited Auckland as a guest speaker at the Documentary NZ Summit. An animated film from a group of students from Media Design School (Auckland) won third prize at the prestigious Hamburg Animation Award and one representative flew to Hamburg to attend the award ceremony and a workshop with Ice Age 2 and 3 co-producer Mike Thurmeier.
Hamburg has also selected New Zealand as their profile country for Filmfest Hamburg. New Zealand films will feature during the festival in September.
Pupils visit Japan for convention
Eight children from Avondale Intermediate got the chance of a lifetime to visit Fukuoka in Japan for the Asian-Pacific Children's Convention recently.
The event aims to foster multi-cultural understanding through a week-long exchange camp with children from over 40 countries, which includes a five-day home stay experience with a Japanese family.
"It was an excellent journey of learning for our eight ambassadors - their lives have changed from this experience," says the school's principal, Pauline Cornwell.
Auckland City Council works with a different intermediate school in the city each year to administer the programme.
Application packs for the 2010 convention will be sent out soon.
New rules a plus for Auckland-Brisbane relationship
Following the recent meeting between Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, the two leaders have confirmed new rules aimed at making trans-Tasman travel faster and trans-Tasman investment simpler.
Councillor Aaron Bhatnagar, Chair of Auckland City Council's City Development committee, believes the rules will strengthen the already successful 20-year partnership between Auckland and Brisbane.
"The new trans-Tasman policy will not only make travel between Auckland and Brisbane easier, but will also provide a great opportunity for sister city business to prosper."
Counterparts from Brisbane are equally pleased with the announcement.
"Brisbane enjoys a strong sister city relationship with Auckland, and these new rules will make it easier to travel to our trans-Tasman neighbour" said Councillor Graham Quirk, Deputy Mayor and councillor responsible for international relations and multicultural affairs.
Trans-Tasman travel will be one of the big winners, with passport scanning kiosks and new biosecurity guidelines allowing reduced queuing time at airports. Tourism Auckland chief executive, Graeme Osborne, says Australia is Auckland's largest visitor market and has the greatest international marketing focus.
"Process improvements that make travel between the two countries easier will have a positive impact on the region in terms of visitation and tourism spend," he says.
The number of Australian visitors to New Zealand for the year ended June 2009 was just over the one million mark, with Auckland having the greatest share of this market (34.2 per cent). Nearly a quarter of Australian arrivals into Auckland are from Queensland.
Figures from across the Tasman are also strong, and Brisbane Marketing Chief Executive Officer, John Aitken, is behind the new policy.
"The increased efficiencies in flights will increase the flow of activity particularly in mutually strong sectors, such as education, inward investment and tourism."
Mr Key and Mr Rudd also announced a substantial lift in the threshold at which investors will need approval to invest in Australia and New Zealand. These new rules are a step forward in creating a common border between New Zealand and Australia.
New Zealand classics profiled at internationally renowned film festival
17. Filmfest Hamburg
New Zealand is to be featured as the 'Deluxe' country at Filmfest Hamburg this year. Six New Zealand cinema classics dating from 1964 to 1987 will have their German premiere at the festival from 24 September to 1 October 2009, showcasing our film potential and locations to an international audience of approximately 35,000.
Auckland City Council lobbied for New Zealand's selection as this year's feature country. The council is working with Film Auckland, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the New Zealand embassy in Germany, the New Zealand Film Archive and the New Zealand Film Commission to maximise the opportunity and attract international film collaborations. Filmfest Hamburg Deluxe will showcase lesser-known films to demonstrate the breadth of New Zealand's film industry that goes beyond the internationally famous works of Jane Campion (The Piano) and Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings 1-3).
Auckland and Hamburg signed a strategic alliance in 2007 to support opportunities for growth in key sectors and to encourage best practice learning. From the outset, a special focus was placed on creative industries. Projects include annual involvement in the Hamburg Animation Award, a guest speaker from Hamburg at the DOCNZ summit 2009 and a best practice videoconference on creative industries between industry experts from both cities.
Hamburg is a major European media centre and hub of film and television production with more than 1,140 companies working in the film industry. New Zealand is a popular destination for German production companies, especially those producing television commercials. In addition, a film co-production agreement between the two countries entitles German-New Zealand co-productions to apply for the New Zealand Screen Production Incentive Fund (SPIFF). Whale Rider, Flight of the Albatross, Among the Cinders, Te Rua and several TV productions are examples of German-New Zealand collaborations.
The Auckland region is a key global film destination and the city plays a pivotal role in the nation's film industry. Auckland is home to over half of the country's screen production employment, and three quarters of national television employment. In 2007, the screen production industry in Auckland city generated GDP of $377 million and the film sector continues to grow. Through sponsorship of
Film Auckland, Auckland City Council
is committed to a sustainable screen production industry.
Updated February 2010
