FEATURE: NICK PARIS OF LUMIERE CINEMA

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Nick, Lumiere has just won New Zealand’s best Cinema, how does that feel?

I was nervously anxious about it because inwardly and deeply I don’t chase crests or laurels or any form of positive content you’ll have to dig into my psychology. When you think about it, I’ve done the Mahe, Four decades of hard work and dedication. So, Im taking this, I’m taking it.

What inspired you to get into cinema and how has that vision evolved for you over the years?

Yes well, it’s definitely evolved. Because when I knee high to a grass hoper and living on the fringe of East Christchurch I would quite often catch the bus or drive around in dads car and drive around looking at the buildings these square profile buildings on suburban street corners and they were cinemas and I knew as a family, we were quite poor, and Id never be able to discover the world but these places screamed to me of cultures and stories from other parts of the world so the departure lounge to parts of the world I wanted to go to. At first it was the architecture of these buildings, the smell the sight the sound, the way it looked, weather it was Victorian or gothic or art deco it really hooked me in. The smell, the musk, the history and the social commentary really got me and then through evolution instead of looking at the ceiling I looked at the screen then film took part of that over. For me it’s still a beautiful hybrid of atmosphere and content.

This is the question that everybody gets asked, what are your top three films?

That’s like a loaded gun, it’s an Alec Baldwin type of moment, you know? So, this one is not a classic film, it been my number one film for a long time and every year I think about it it, its “Breaking Away” with a young Emily Watson and I don’t know, it’s the way it was filmed. A maverick film maker who uses natural light, natural performances who micro cameras right in your face. That film of a woman living in a strictly Calvinistic, religious island somewhere off the Hebrides’. It’s about her and the way the community treated her once she was trying to find her way in love as a young girl on the island. The community turns on her and in amongst that are these beautiful segues and postcards of the island and music of the era. A bit of Pink Floyd, nostalgic 60’s artists. That’s the film that sticks in my mind, decades later. Blade Runner is definitely in there because there’s nothing more tangible and exciting for me than sitting in the back row and watching the audience get into this film that’s near on 40 plus years now and you can touch the atmosphere in the cinema of the expectation of the audience watching this film with a bunch of strangers. In 1982 I saw that film at the Harbor Light in Lyttleton on a very rainy night and the roof was leaking, and musky air was coming through because the cinema is decades old and that moment, I revisited some weeks ago with Blade Runner. There are guys and girls that have seen that film two or three times here, but they keep coming back to it because it has that X factor. Number three is “Heat” and I’m very glad that you brought a debutante to see that here the other night.

How do you decide what you’re going to put up on the screen?

Well intuition. I come with the benefit of knowing the Christchurch audience and I ran film festivals and been involved with festivals. I’ve gradually built up an assemblance of knowledge and yes there is a bit of personal stuff there. But there is this chemistry, amalgamation of knowledge with my time at Alice in Videoland. Talking with people about their love and wants with film. So, I’m really confident in that scheduling of cinema. So yeah, a little bit of personal and a lot of what I think the film community needs.

I come here, it’s the cinema pinnacle for me, you’ve done so well with Lumiere. How do you feel about the journey?

Immensely proud now and when I stop and take a breath, finally Im actually patting myself on the back and that’s taken a long, long, long, long time and those pat yourself on the back moment is coming more and more now.

Looking forward, where do you see film going with so many ways to watch films now?

I’ve looked upon the advent of streaming services as a plus. People want choice and they want choice now, so I look at the Lumiere for the months and years ahead and say you’ve got to have choice, you’ve got to have variety. So, animation, documentaries, film festivals. I’ve just introduced a thing called pitch back, play back which is an album listening session in the dark. So, you go in there with a mask which you can wear and listen to an album which might be in its anniversary year and sit back and relax in a disciplined environment and you get to listen to that in a 5.1 sound system. We recently commissioned a local band,  Moider Mother played the soundtrack with the film Nosferatu. We turned the sound off and had a silent film with just the band playing. Just variety and using the art form in different and more exciting ways. I can never compete against streaming services but when you look at the Lumiere it’s never boring from week to week.

You’ve got a full cinema when it comes to classic films that are 30, 40 years old. You’ve got audiences that really appreciate it.

Yeah, if there’s one thing that I’ve seen on the upswing, its films that I call “Out of the past” that’s a need or want from younger people that want to experience these films in a disciplined environment, i.e. cinema. There's an unquestionable thirst to see these films on an anniversary or reissues right around the world. I guess that’s led in part by the lack of contemporary films that really hook into people’s zeitgeist. If there’s nothing in the future they look into the past like anything,  music icons, where are todays music icons? So, it’s just the same for cinema. I definitely see my “Out of the past’ series as a corner stone of what I’m trying to do or curate in my time on earth.

You’re in such a beautiful space at the Arts center and the cinema itself. You must love it here?

Yes, the room tones and the ambience of the learning institution that was the old University of Canterbury lend itself well to what I’m doing. What a perfect segue. An Old university lecture theatre split into two cinemas. So, it does feel good, it does feel right. Part of the tender document that I took on when I started here is that it has an educational imprint and I think we’re doing that in film academia and an environmental one which we are careful about, that we do in wastage here. We have a social conscience. The lynch pins we have in running a business, environmental, social, good outcomes for staff, its all in there. That’s the fire in my belly that wants me to keep this thing going.

The French Festival is coming soon. 

What else are seeing at Lumiere in the next 6 months as far as festivals and events?

Yeah, it’s still a gathering of nuts in terms of film supply. We’re talking about the recession; the actors and writer’s strike. It won’t really be until 2026 that studios around the world will be ramping up their Feng Sui. But between now and 2026 the revisiting of film festivals from different countries, the British, the French, the Irish, the big international and the Doc edge. I’m busy on working on all those now so yeah, again, variety and choice.

Thank you, Nick. It was a great afternoon chatting with you. Best of luck to you and the cinema moving into the future.