in local cinema than they do in the next big studio blockbuster). If we can't learn to make our genre films (and our festival/arthouse films) connect with a broader audience, we're sunk. It's as simple as that. What's been predicted all through the 90?s and early 2000?s has come to pass, it's crunch time and people are trying very hard to think outside the typical NZ box. And that goes for short films. It seems to me that the Blue Harvest people want to also think outside that box. "Our stories are important, need to be supported, and will be supported -- if we tell them." NOW who's talking horseshit. Prove it. Show me the numbers. Show me the box office receipts. We're not left wanting for NZ feature films, apart from the NZFC there's at least between 5-10 amateur features produced in this country every year, but they don't get picked up by distributors and when they do not enough people turn up to watch them. You're spouting feel-good platitudes now, not reasoned argument. "If we don't care about what we have to say, if we only want to say what other people are saying, why even say it?" First thing you've said that makes sense. If people won't turn up to watch it, why are we making it? But we in the industry already KNOW this. Now we're trying to figure out WHAT WILL people turn up to watch from our own country, our own stories. As far