NZ Film Festival: Wound

Wound marks the bold comeback of the enfant terrible of New Zealand cinema. In 1978 David Blyth’s punkish sex-in-the-suburbs debut Angel Mine caused outrage and censorship debates. He later cemented his reputation with a bona fide antipodean horror classic Death Warmed Up.

New Zealand has a weak history of transgressive cinema: Wound is the angry by-product of being bored by the utterly predictable banality of our mainstream movies. After years of working in the documentary landscape, Blyth’s lo-fi comeback is a shocking supernatural tale of mental illness, bondage, incest, revenge and explicit graphic violence.

A reinterpretation of the Demeter-Persephone myth (mother tries to rescue her child from Hades), it features a vengeful daughter searching for the mother who gave her up for dead after being abused by her own father. A ferocious, brave performance from Kate O’Rourke centres the film as all around spirals into dementia and viscera. — AT

Director: David Blyth
Year: 2010
Running time: 77 mins
Censor Rating: R18 - graphic violence, sexual violence

Screenplay: David Blyth
Producers: Andrew Beattie, David Blyth
Photography: Marc Mateo
Editors: Samantha Sperlich, Eddie Larsen
Music: Jed Town
DigiBeta

With: Kate O’Rourke (Susan), Te Kaea Beri (Tanya), Campbell Cooley (Master John), Sandy Lowe (Mistress Ruth), Brendan Gregory (Neil), Ian Mune (Dr Nelson), Maggie Tarver (Dr Alice Weaver), Chrystal Ash (Rosie), Matt Easterbrook (Mark), Omar Al Sobky & Andy Sophocleous (Crisis Team).

Event listed by MCH Admin

View their other events or contact promoter