The Dunedin Fringe Festival goes to the movies tonight for one of its traditional highlights, the Night Vision drive-in short film festival in the Countdown central car park.
Films from New Zealand and overseas will be featured in sessions at 8pm and 10pm today and tomorrow.
Co-ordinator Craig Storey, who believed it was the only drive-in short-film festival in New Zealand, said yesterday it "just keeps getting bigger and bigger''.
"We've got 45 films from Israel, England, Australia and New Zealand this year, of which about 17 were made locally.''
The film categories include 10-minute general and original music films, while one of the most interesting genres will be the 90-second film category, which includes films shot with a mobile phone camera.
"They're all of an exceptionally high standard.
"They range from quirky films and social commentaries to short documentaries, music and romance,'' Storey said.
At just $5 a car, Night Vision usually packs out the Countdown central car park.
"Last year, some people even walked in with a couch.''
The picture gets even bigger at the University of Otago, where Marty Roberts is screening his evocative Apollo:Redux on random buildings.
"I love the old buildings and alleyways around here. They're perfect for large-scale projections,'' Roberts said.
"The projection moves all around.
"It includes footage of the moon landing, 9/11 and atomic weapons testing. It's really an amalgam of all of that.''
Jacob Faauga-Renwick digs into New Zealand's past to revisit the 1981 Springbok rugby tour in A Nation Divided, at the Playhouse Theatre at 8.30pm.
It's the first solo show for the 20-year-old actor, who graduated from the Wellington Performing Arts Centre last year.
"I was watching a documentary on TV about the history of New Zealand and there was a bit about the Springbok tour.
"I didn't know much about it, and thought it would be choice to see what I could do with it,'' he said.
"It's mainly about the lengths people go to to defend what they believe in. It's about people in really confrontational places,'' he said.
"I'm planning on taking it around schools later this year. I think it's a story that my generation should know more about.''
Wellington art teacher Kristelle Plummer continues her fascinating tongue-in-cheek discourse on art history today in Art from Go to Whoa and Other Stories.
"It's post-modern philosophical thought and the complete history of western art,'' Plummer said on the way in from Dunedin airport yesterday.
"It's presented as a series of rhyming poems and verses.''
Art from Go to Whoa and Other Stories is on in room 201 in the School of Art at 2pm and 6.30pm today.
One of the most professional and genuinely funny shows at this year's festival is The Morrisons' Huntly, High and Low, a fast-paced tiki tour of musical skits, impressions and comedy set to a bed of '80s hits.
Yet, incredibly, The Morrisons had to cancel their Wednesday night show in the Hutton Theatre, when nobody turned up.
The 2008 Fringe Festival winds up this weekend.
If there's one show you really don't want to miss, it's Huntly, High and Low.
