I’ve always enjoyed the film work of Martin Sagadin, a Slovenian Born, New Zealand based non-binary filmmaker and artist. I was first introduced to their perceptive and work after seeing the video for Aldous Harding’s 2014 ‘No Peace‘. They have also produced music videos for the likes of Nadia Reid, Marlon Williams and Tiny Ruins to name just a few. With Harding’s recent ‘Old Peel’ video, it’s not her that plays the central role…she’s nowhere to be seen; instead Sagadin steps out from behind the camera to deliver a mesmerising energetic dance. This otherworldliness seems to be a place that Sagadin is happy to linger in and it’s very inviting…
Their latest film features Australian folk musician Archer and was filmed in the hills above Lyttelton, New Zealand. Archer puts me in mind of Josephine Foster, their songs can be so emotive that each performance feels somehow unique to that moment, something that Sagadin’s film accentuates, giving the whole session a freeform feel that both add to that quirky air of mystery and uniqueness but is ultimately couched in a genuine feeling of warmth, especially towards nature and the love and respect we afford it.
Martin Sagadin: “One scorching summer long ago, but maybe yesterday, during Archer’s visit to Aotearoa, he stopped in Ōhinehou where him and filmmaker Martin Sagadin scaled the sacred hills and sang songs. “There was a Grove” is both a meditation and a dire warning about greed. “O, my baby Koala” and its accompanying ramble presents itself as a vulnerable benevolent nursery rhyme that urges kindness and love for the animals we share this Earth with. The last song -an improvised number called “Song of the Unknown #3,267,331” is a deeply felt love ballad of yearning, for something far away, further even than the far stretching horizon of the Te Pataka o Rākaihautū that Archer perches on.”
Martin Sagadin: Instagram
Archer: Instagram