Film Families and Friends: Creative Networks in a Precarious Industry

Abstract

Films have been made in Aotearoa for more than a hundred years but the early 1970s saw significant growth in independent filmmaking. This thesis investigates the period of New Zealand film’s evolution from informal cottage industry to professional global industry, focusing on the changes and continuities in filmmaking culture between 1970 and 2020. Drawing on the literature on filmmaking and creative industries, and using the theories of Actor-Network, and of habitus and capital developed by Pierre Bourdieu the thesis focuses on three distinctive characteristics of the New Zealand industry: project-based work, freelance networks, and the enculturation of second and third generations into filmwork. The place of families and friendships is central to the processes of enculturation and to all these networks. These three characteristics also shape the inclusion and exclusion of marginalised groups, especially women, LGBTQ, and Māori and Pasifika filmworkers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty participants. I undertook a thematic analysis of the interviews, in the light of the secondary literature. The analysis showed strong connections between self-image and creative work, between habitus and family legacy occupation and between networks of the counterculture and the development of film in New Zealand. It also revealed changes in the industry as it becomes more open and diverse, and that the gendered participation of families has altered through successive generations.