The Return 2007

Kathy Dudding's experimental documentary – a poetic portrait of Wellington city – achieves a pleasing and eerie resonance through the simplest of formal devices. On the soundtrack she conducts a conversation that might have occured in the past by merging the reminiscences of her 90-year-old grandmother's early life in Wellington with her own reflections. On screen she intercuts her own placidly composed images of the Wellington waterfront with black and white 'found footage' shot in Wellington between 1908 to 1933. The passage of time is elegantly inscribed in this poignant and thoughtful film. — BG. "The postcard shot was eschewed – instead I focused on the offbeat moment, the quirky, the strange, the surreal side of the city... The Return is a tribute to the life of my grandmother, as much as it is a celebration of the city of her childhood, which subsequently became my own home." — Kathy Dudding