WELLINGTON

3.30pm - 5.30pm Sunday 20 May

Embassy Theatre, Kent Terrace, Wellington

World Première of DANCING WITH ATOMS

A documentary film by Point of View Productions

All proceeds to the Cancer Society of New Zealand

In November 2008, Sir Paul Callaghan awoke to find himself in hospital after radical bowel surgery. Thus began a different trajectory in the life of one of New Zealand’s most exceptional scientists and public figures.

In the time left, he redoubled his efforts to communicate his campaign to make New Zealand ‘A place where talent wants to live’ and issued a last challenge to New Zealanders to make the mainland predator-free.

Film-maker Shirley Horrocks, one of New Zealand’s leading documentary makers, has documented the lives of many artists including Marti Friedlander and Len Lye. In this film, she discovers the world of atoms and molecules that so entranced Sir Paul. He used nuclear magnetic resonance as a choreographer directs the dance. This film is a beautifully composed mosaic of memories by his brother Jim, colleagues, students and friends who were close to him, recording Sir Paul’s unique personality and vision.

This film has been funded by the MacDiarmid Institute (which Sir Paul founded in 2002), AUT, Callaghan Innovation, Kiwibank, Massey University, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Royal Society Te Apārangi, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, University of Waikato,Victoria University of Wellington

SHIRLEY HORROCKS (Producer/Director of ‘Dancing with Atoms’)

Shirley Horrocks has been described by the International Film Festival as “New Zealand’s most dedicated and attentive documentarian of art and artists". Her work has won a number of awards and received festival screenings around the world. She is the New Zealand director whose work has been screened most often by the New Zealand International Film Festival. The Directory of World Cinema speaks of her "painstakingly-researched, in-depth films that record, educate and celebrate".

Shirley has had an exceptionally long and devoted career, producing and directing 20 major one-hour or feature-length documentaries, along with many half-hour documentaries.