We are thrilled that we can once again enjoy each other’s company and our Nelson Branch June newsletter includes details of our next meeting on Friday 26 June.
Historical Films of New Zealand – China Friendship
In 1957, husband and wife film makers Rudall and Ramai Hayward made a film of their travels titled ‘Inside Red China’. Ramai was famous as the star of the feature film ‘Rewi’s Last Stand’ (1940). She went on to work in many films. She died in 2014 aged 97. Also in 2014, film producer George Andrews, a Vice President of NZCFS, arranged for the Hayward’s film to be digitalised, and to be published by NZCFS with the assistance of a Deng Fund Grant. George added a documentary to the DVD of the recovery of the korowai or Maori cloak which Ramai had presented to Chairman Mao in Beijing in 1957. The cloak was repatriated for some months to be displayed at Te Papa.
These two stories are intertwined in the presentations at the meeting on June 26. The two photographs below also show the linkage: young Ramai Hayward with cameras in China in 1957, and George Andrews, early in his career, working on a film on the NZ West Coast, with Billy T James.
Our June meeting will provide members with a fascinating evening of historic film in the long story of friendship between New Zealand and China.
For more details view the full Nelson Branch Newsletter, June 2020 (pdf).
