Fiume Nights • JESS CHAMBERS & THE FIREFLY ORCHESTRA
I just spent 3 weeks travelling in New Zealand. Went there without too many things in mind, needed a break to work on the edit of my Tomokawa movie but finally ended up just driving around the country, from Auckland in the North Island to Queenstown in the South Island. Fantastic country, lovely people constantly teaching my french background about being open-minded, ‘bisounours land’ as my friend Jenny used to say. And that legendary humble attitude - ‘we are like Belgium’ i’ve heard here and there.
I didn’t know much about New Zealand’s music before going there, apart from the fame of Crowded House and a few elements here and there - just met Liam Finn a few weeks ago in Europe, but unfortunately he wasn’t in the country this time.
Scheduled also a ‘Temporary Auckland’ night in the main city of the country, but had to cancel it at the last minute due to many various reasons, and lack of energy - and preparation.
But if Auckland is by far the biggest city, it’s not the most interesting, especially from a cultural point of view. Auckland would make you think about Oakland, or another random american city, while the capital Wellington have this charm of a much more special place, an old european touch in it.
I didn’t have much desire to shoot any music those past weeks, but I met Jess Chambers one night in a party - the first night we spent in Wellington. An after party celebrating the last show of Fly My Pretties - i missed the show for a rugby game… but a great rugby game. I was introduced to Jess by a few people, including the wonderful guitar player Justin Firefly. We exchanged a few words and decided to organize a little shoot for the next week to come. And she planned doing something at her friend (and wonderful painter) Freeman White’s studio.
Wellington is an amazing city - ‘Windy Welly’ makes you think to a little San Francisco or Hong Kong for the beautiful bay surrounded by hills, with small streets packed with bars and musicians and people working for Weta, Peter Jackson’s film company. Most of the people i met (seriously 50%, the other half being musicians) were actually working on Avatar, the next James Cameron movie (you know, the guy who is gonna convince you that 3D movies are a revolution on the viewer’s brain, while it’s just a new dictatorial tool), so it was pretty interesting (makes you humble) to arrive there with my one-man crew and organize this intimate shooting.
Well, the term ‘organization’ is less and less accurate to my work i guess… i didn’t organize anything on that night, just asked Jess to bring a few friends in a nice place - again, pretexting the cinema to launch ideas and energies into a collaborative creative moment.
On the night i met Jess, later when we came back home, Justin Firefly was playing in his room, supposedly ‘for a girl on skype’. It sounded amazing, it was one of his new song, ‘Please’. Justin wasn’t supposed to be there a week later for the shooting, but he postponed his trip to the south island to be part of the sounds of the night. Thanks to him, this ‘Please’, replayed with a bunch of friends, is a definitive highlight to my recent musical months.
The whole night was beautiful, and even if i didn’t do a great job on the filming approach to it, it stays as a nice souvenir of a little trip to Aotearoa, and i hope for you the viewers, a good window to enter a great, diverse and exciting musical scene.
MORE
/
WATCH
