Having screened at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Veialu Aila-Unsworth’s short animation Blue Willow is stirring interest around the world, writes RON HANSON.


Father told me I was wise beyond my years
But not wise enough to foresee the day he would break my heart
Not because he wanted to
But because he was my father
And that is what fathers do
They disappoint their daughters

THUS BEGINS the narration of Wellington filmmaker Veialu Aila-Unsworth’s short animation, Blue Willow, told by its lead character, Kong-se, the beautiful daughter of a rich Mandarin. In this, her second film, Aila-Unsworth revisits the old legend attached to the famous ceramic pattern designed by Thomas Minton at the end of the 18th century. The tale tells the story of Kong-se who has been promised in marriage to the brutal warrior Ta Jin. Kong-se, though, loves a commoner, her father’s assistant, Chen. And on the eve of the wedding the two risk everything by escaping and running away.

Aila-Unsworth says that for her the story has always been a fairy tale; it was one of her favourites as a child. To capture that feeling she drew the characters on cardboard and painted them to look almost as if a child had done it. Drawn simply with thick bold lines and coloured with washes of deep blues and violent red, the drawings are brought to eerie life using 2D animation, each movement drawing the viewer deeper into a hypnotic mythical world, like a strange but beautiful dream. The film’s darker currents are stirred by a haunting soundtrack of strings composed by Tim Beal. In this world everything resonates. Nothing is static.

Blue Willow was made by Aila-Unsworth as she completed a Masters of Theatre Arts at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 2004. She had made it as a school project and after finishing it anticipated quickly moving on. But the film struck a warm chord with its audience and the response encouraged her to push it further. Screen Innovation funding in 2005 enabled her to rework the sound recording and re-edit some of the scenes. The film screened that year as part of the Homegrown section at the New Zealand International Film Festivals. Towards the end of that year she learned that the film had been selected to screen in competition in the Kinderfest section of the prestigious Berlin Film Festival.


The New Zealand Film Commission’s Kate Kennedy informed her of the news. “Actually, I didn’t know they’d sent it,” Aila-Unsworth says. “I was on holiday in Christchurch and I got this call from Kate Kennedy saying ‘your film’s been accepted in Berlin’. And I actually didn’t know what that meant. I was like ‘Yay, OK, cool’. And she said ‘yeah and we’ll need a 35 mm print as soon as possible.’ And then over the next week I discovered, wow, it’s a big festival.”

Situated in a city with more than 150 cinemas and that produces annually around 300 films, the Berlinale, along with those in Cannes and Venice, is among the biggest film festivals in the world. Spread out over 10 days it is attended by around 500,000 people, including more than 16000 trade visitors and 3800 journalists. “I’ve never been in a place like that,” Aila-Unsworth says. “The whole city was in a frenzy over film.”

The festival occurs in February, in the thick of German winter. “It was freezing. The first five days there was snow and that was really magical because at nighttime when we’d come out of the cinemas there’d be the smell of bockwurst sausages and hot mulled wine that they’d sell out on the street. You’d look up and there’d be snowflakes coming down through the trees.”

The Kinderfest section, in which Blue Willow screened, is one of six in the festival and features 21 short films and 21 features. This year’s theme was world migration and its increasing impact on how different generations live together. The Kinderfest aims to get children involved in interacting with film. Aila-Unsworth said she’d never thought of her film as being specifically for a young audience but neither too had any of the other filmmakers she spoke to.

“I didn’t even really know children’s festivals existed. But you could really see they cared about young people and making sure they’d bring them into the culture of not only viewing films but seeing them with a critical eye. So they had a children’s jury who actually gave out the big award, they call it the Crystal Bear, and child journalists who were updating a website and a magazine. They took kids seriously. And these kids were bright too.


“I was a little nervous because I thought that children can be quite blunt. But I was pleasantly surprised because they’re so noisy in between the films you can tell when they’re focused. It’s kind of a nice way to be able to tell whether they’re interested. ‘Cause they’d be peering around, running around the cinema, talking to each other, yelling out. You could tell when they were interested because they’d all stop talking.”

As well as being accredited to see all the other films for free, featured filmmakers were invited to endless parties, large and small, where they could mingle with other professionals from around the world. “I got a real kick out of talking to them about what it’s like to make films in their country,” Aila-Unsworth says, “like in Denmark there’s about a million more people in New Zealand but they make about 30 features a year.

“I was very aware, though, that it was my first big festival so I was very green. I was sort of star-struck, free alcohol, great parties, free movies. And there were other people I noticed with the short-filmmakers who were at perhaps their 7th or 10th festival and had their business card. And they very much had an agenda of trying to get funding or get on a programme at a festival. I was kind of scared of that whole thing to be honest because I didn’t really know what agenda I was pushing.”

Nonetheless the response to “Blue Willow” was strong and Aila-Unsworth was approached by a number of industry people after each screening. The film is now is consideration for several festivals to be held later this year. These include the Granada festival in Spain and children’s festivals in Kenya, Denmark, Toronto, the Czech Republic and Chicago. The film appears to be taking on a life of its own.

After the festival Aila-Unsworth made a trip with her partner, Michal, to the Czech Republic to visit his home-town, Olsna, a small village in the countryside two-and-a-half hours outside of Prague. She is now back in Wellington and studying Ken Duncum’s masters creative writing course at Victoria University. Her main focus is to complete a script for a feature film. Those who have seen Blue Willow will be waiting in anticipation.