Biography

Florian Habicht - Filmmaker

'The day before I was told [about the residency], I was just returning from a test screening of an all-consuming three-year project. While landing at Auckland International Airport, I speculated on the fact that I had no plans for the future. I watched a plane take off and dreamed about journeying overseas to reflect and develop ideas. The offer of the residency came at a perfect time.'

Florian Habicht, inaugural recipient of the Harriet Friedlander Residency in New York.

Born in Germany, Florian moved to New Zealand at the age of eight with his family. He has directed a number of films including Liebesträume 2000, Woodenhead 2003 and Kaikohe Demolition 2004.

Woodenhead is renowned for the innovation of recording the dialogue, as Florian used different actors to record the narrative before shooting the film.

Kaikohe Demolition won the Best Digital Feature at the New Zealand Screen Awards in the year it was released. Florian developed a feature script Permissive Paradise at the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam.

In 2008 Florian completed the feature Rubbings From a Live Man, a documentary performed by and based on the life of Warwick Broadhead, which he co-produced with Philippa Campbell. Long time collaborator Chris Pryor is Director of Photography. Rubbings From a Live Man premiered in the New Zealand International Film Festival in July 2008. Florian says of this production “in a career that spans forty years, Warwick Broadhead has conceived, directed and performed in over sixty original shows presented in a huge variety of venues both in New Zealand and abroad. He has never allowed his work to be recorded. But now, faced with a film maker’s provocations, the flamboyant performer is pushed to re-enact the highest and the lowest moments of his life using his own cast of alter egos.”

Fishing meets philosophy in Florian’s documentary Land of the Long White Cloud. Set entirely on 90 Mile Beach and a Far North pub, the doco takes place during the world's largest Snapper fishing contest. The film premiered in 2009 in Auckland shortly before Florian took up his year-long residency in New York. Florian returned for the nationwide theatrical release in January 2010.

Florian was the inaugural Harriet Friedlander New York Residency recipient. His stay in New York in 2009 and 2010 resulted in the production of the acclaimed film Love Story, which opened the NZ International Film Festival in Auckland and went on to be awarded Best Director, Best Editing and Best Feature Film at the 2011 Aotearoa Film & Television Awards.

"Florian is a surprising, resourceful, thoroughly independent film-maker and artist. He is a true original – at once a fantasist and a documentary-maker, a dreamer and an observer. In two strikingly different films - Woodenhead and Kaikohe Demolition - Florian has set about imaginatively reinventing the province of Northland (where he spent much of his childhood). To my mind, he has already opened up for himself a huge field of artistic possibility. And the next few years will yield some remarkable results. New York will be a fantastic opportunity for him to make new work and to present his existing work to audiences who, believe me, are going to be thrilled, amused and touched."
Gregory O’Brien

2011 NZ Film Festival listing for Love Story

When Auckland filmmaker Florian Habicht took up the Arts Foundation's Harriet Friedlander Residency in New York in late 2009, he was under no obligation to do a jot of work, let alone return with the opening night movie for Auckland's 2011 Film Festival. It's hard to imagine a more shining validation of Friedlander's faith in the regenerative powers of New York City. It's a Love Story indeed, embracing documentary, fiction, summer, sex, romance, New York and a host of camera-ready New Yorkers in one gregarious, greedy, joyous hug.

Florian's muse and quarry is the exquisite Masha, romantic fantasy incarnate, first spotted on the subway heading towards Coney Island carrying only a slice of cake perfectly balanced on a plate. Buttonholing miscellaneous New Yorkers, he solicits advice at every stage of the ensuing affair to figure out what could happen next in his film. Even the cranky responses we see crackle with character and perverse joie de vivre.

He's also consulting a psychic and Skyping dad back home for long-term career guidance. He's not in Manhattan for ever, and as autumn sets in the film takes on a melancholic undertow. An elderly homeless drunk recalls his boyhood crush: harsh reality and hopeless fantasy constantly jostle and excite each other in Florian'sNew York.

Though presented as a shot-on-the-fly, made-up-as-I-went-along piece of whimsy, it looks like a dream and is cut with wit and dexterity. Already there are so many hymns to New York; why should we be astounded to find another that's so freshly, contagiously, uniquely in love with the place? - BG

Love Story was self-funded with assistance from the Arts Foundation Harriet Friedlander NYC Residency and the New Zealand Film Commission. The film is distributed in New Zealand by Metropolis Films and Habicht.