----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Having suggested recently that New Zealand film can stand up to analysis as well as any other nationality's, I have since spent sleepless nights (that's days to you!) trying to define "New Zealand film". Does the collective works of a nation comprise "X" film? What happens to those films or filmmakers who deliberately make film to subvert that supposed national thread? New Zealand has a small (comparatively) but active film industry; it is tempting to say there is a national voice expressed, some qualities that are universal among them. That presupposes "good faith" on the part of the filmmakers to contribute to the New Zealand film tradition. I'm using NZ here as I can't speak for those traditions of other countries; presumably (help me here) other small countries have the same questions. How does a New Zealander break the mould, be seen as not a New Zealander? As a small nation clutching for a cultural identity, we tend to "own" our sportspeople, our millionaires, our supermodels and our filmmakers. Coversely, how do filmmakers from the US break the mould and free themselves from the international assumptions audiences bring with them when "consuming" film? How does an American subvert the American film mechanism to produce something else? -Rebecca Robinson, University of Canterbury, New Zealand