SAM HUNT Purple Balloon and other stories – Film Fundraiser

by Union AID · 13 November 2014

UNIONAID FUNDRAISER TO SUPPORT INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

2 DECEMBER
7:45PM
PARAMOUNT THEATRE

Tickets available for $20 at Paramount Cinema, Courtenay Place.

For forty years Sam Hunt has been a force in New Zealand poetry and culture. He is a storyteller who has spent his life struggling with his, often very public, demons. In that journey he has gone from outcast to icon, he has crossed paths with outlaws, prime ministers, literary and artistic giants and the public.

Sam Hunt – Purple Balloon and other stories explores how Sam reflects the New Zealand landscape – literary and physical. The film examines what has made him a great poet and an enigma.
Sam is undoubtedly our best known poet, by far the best exponent of performance poetry and one of the most recognisable kiwis alive today. In the words of the late Peter Smart: ‘Sam Hunt is important to us because he is that extraordinary, rare person – someone who is prepared to illustrate with his life the value of poetry and the making of poems.’ Sam Hunt- Purple Balloon and other stories confirms this statement and shines a fresh light on Sam’s often misunderstood path.

“With a man like Sam Hunt, any film that attempts to capture him is only going to touch on aspects, but Purple Balloon and Other Stories touches those aspects with a wonderful sense of balance. In some ways it is like a Sam Hunt poem: unpretentious, approachable, and often insightful.” Andy Palmer in Lumiere

“When Hunt came on stage in his signature stove-pipe jeans, flowing shirt and scarf, hair flying every which way, there was a rumble of barely suppressed derision from hundreds of adolescent male throats. Then Hunt began to speak and, until he’d finished what he’d come to say, he held them all, transfixed, in the palm of his hand. This film does that too.” Helen Martin, On Film