\u201cIt proved that you can make something independently, and it can be shown and appreciated in New Zealand and outside New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he had no firm plans to celebrate the nomination, he said he hopes to travel to France for the awards ceremony on June 25.<\/p>\n
A mystery with Kiwi roots<\/p>\n
Smoky centres on the disappearance of a clown and follows the mystery surrounding what happened to him, stemming from Fink-Jensen\u2019s own fascination with the often-misunderstood entertainers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re often portrayed as horror villains, so I thought, what if we flipped it around and made it focused on the clown who went missing?\u201d<\/p>\n
The film was shot over 15 days across Auckland, with locations including Te Atat\u016b , Rosedale, Mt Eden and Glen Innes.<\/p>\n
James Fink-Jensen led a local team for the 15-day shoot. Photo \/ James Fink-Jensen<\/p>\n
Fink-Jensen said the story was designed to resonate with audiences around the world, despite its local setting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to tell a Kiwi story but also a universal one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yet the film\u2019s central mystery is still closely informed by New Zealand\u2019s close-knit communities, where \u201ceveryone kind of knows each other\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, well, if there was a mystery thriller based on someone who went missing, that environment lends itself to the mystery and heightening it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He drew further inspiration from Twin Peaks, Gone Girl and Prisoners for the film\u2019s visual style and atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Flying the flag for independent film<\/p>\n
Fink-Jensen hopes the nomination will shine a light on New Zealand\u2019s independent film sector internationally, showing small-scale local productions can compete on a global stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows obviously Lord of the Rings and our film history, but I think adding to the equation, other stories about independent successes is only good for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
His advice for young film-makers is to keep going, not give up, and be willing to make mistakes, arguing there are more opportunities to make films than ever before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s all sorts of ways to make stuff these days, and you don\u2019t need massive cameras or huge budgets just to pull something together.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Fink-Jensen hopes the international nomination will help him make industry connections abroad. James Fink-Jensen<\/p>\n
Fink-Jensen said he goes out of his way to work with other emerging creatives, saying collaboration is one of the strengths of the local industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge film-making community here and Australia too, so tapping into that and connecting with people.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his next move, the writer-director has already begun developing several new feature film projects, and hopes the nomination will help him forge new industry connections overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt proved that you can make something independently, and it can be shown and appreciated in New Zealand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74,1975,2346,35493,35142,3936,236968,156,5071,593,111001,236967,1888,2082,30538,21556,14054,194,52169,111,139,7562,69,13235,226058,5433,377,4741,80],"class_list":["post-468348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-after","tag-at","tag-award","tag-cannes","tag-debut","tag-director","tag-emergingdirector","tag-entertainment","tag-feature","tag-film","tag-filmmaking","tag-finkjensen","tag-first","tag-for","tag-helping","tag-independent","tag-james","tag-kiwi","tag-lions","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nominated","tag-nz","tag-prestigious","tag-shortlisted","tag-stage","tag-world","tag-young","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}