What the Folk!

He got food poisoning in New Orleans? No.

Lights, camera, action: V48Hours kicks off
Fri, 16 Apr 2010 6:20p.m.
By Kate Rodger


Regular contestant and filmmaker Taika Waititi

Watch out on the nation's streets this weekend for fake blood, fake guns and crazy filmmakers – it's the eighth annual V48Hours Film Festival.

The festival is not for the faint-hearted. Each year thousands of budding filmmakers sign up. They have 48 hours to write, shoot, edit, and survive.

"There will be a lot of screaming, laughter, tears on Sunday night, and people either make the deadline or not," says organiser Ant Timpson.

"This is the competition where boys become men and girls become women."

And while those boys and girls have been girding their cinematic loins for this weekend, one V48Hour veteran decided to just soak it up in his hotel bathtub.

"You know what I did earlier?" asks filmmaker Taika Waititi. "I put a facemask on, but before I started doing 48 hour films, it was frowned upon - but now I can do whatever I want."

Waititi usually enters each year, but with his latest film Boy planted firmly at the top of the Kiwi box office, he's planted firmly in New Orleans shooting The Green Lantern.

In other words, he's come a long way from his V48Hour days.

"We're talking 650 teams, 10,000 people," says Timpson. "This year, Taranaki is a new region, small team of desperadoes knocking it out of the park."

And for all those hopefuls chasing honour and glory this weekend, here's a final word Waititi.

"Have a good time, who knows - one day you could be living all alone with no friends, drinking coffee out of a wine glass, naked."

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