Since the beginning of the Twentieth Century tourism films have constituted a significant part of New Zealand film production. In fact, films made and/or used for tourism promotion have been released for domestic and overseas circulation by both government-led and private film production companies. Over the last 10 years the institutions in charge of Wellington tourism marketing have been increasingly relying on social media platforms such as Youtube and Facebook to globally circulate images of New Zealand's capital city. Indeed, since 2007, 20 tourism marketing campaigns conceived for social media circulation featured in WellingtonNZ Youtube channel. This article will focus on three of these campaigns: the Vampire's Guide to Vellington (2014); the It's Never Just a Weekend When It's in Wellington series ( 2014) and the LookSee series (2017). Through the analysis of these case studies, this article argues that contemporary Wellington tourism film production is a complex and multilayered process characterised by the cross-collaboration between local political stakeholders, local creatives and local businesses. Moreover, it highlights how the representation of Wellington as a cinematic and creative city, home of a globalised creative class has been informed by the neoliberal paradigm and by the persistence of a deeply-rooted settler gaze.

Since its inception, New Zealand film production has often been characterized by a strong focus on the promotion and marketing of local scenic locations. However, over the last few decades and simultaneously with New Zealand’s rapidly increasing urbanization rates, urban narratives have gained prominence in the cinematic representation of the country, gradually becoming important aspects of national tourism marketing campaigns. This article first provides an overview of New Zealand tourism film’s dynamics of production and recurring themes and narratives from the early twentieth century to the 1960s. It then focuses on Toehold on a Harbour and This Auckland – tourism films produced by the government-led New Zealand National Film Unit and released respectively in 1967 and 1966 – and identifies a turning point in the manufacturing of local urban narratives and in New Zealand urban tourism marketing. My critical and textual analysis of these two case studies notably relies on the examination of archival documents related to their production and on an interview with This Auckland’s director Hugh Macdonald. It ultimately shows how the emergence of ‘cities with a character’ as a tourism marketing tool was in fact a carefully planned, articulated and years-long government-driven strategy.

Review of: CIAO, 2021! (2022), Russia: Perviy Kanal

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