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The past couple of years have seen a breakthrough for documentary film in New Zealand. And not only for the world-threatening issues aired in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
A few months ago, DOCNZ, the International Documentary Film Festival, stretched to four main
centres and awarded prizes for the best films in various categories.
At DOCNZ, we could see documentaries on the big screen, without peripheral domestic distractions, invidious ad breaks and, in many cases, free of the sometimes brutal cuts that are made so films can be trimmed to television programming requirements.
Some of the best docos aired in this year's selection looked at New Zealand musicians such as Michael Houstoun, Sister Mary Leo and Douglas Lilburn, all initially shown in TVNZ's Saturday night documentary slot.
This is no surprise. Classical music buffs are used to classy documentaries. The films of Bruno Monsaingeon and Frank Scheffer have enlightened many on charismatic performers such as Glenn Gould and composers ranging from Mahler to Berio.
While these are limited to Arts Channel screenings or DVD, Phil Grabsky's In Search of Mozart did make it around the cinema circuit earlier this year.
Now Rialto has programmed Barbara Willis Sweete's new documentary on the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Five Days in September: The Rebirth of an Orchestra.
We are used to tales of orchestral woe on the local scene - most recently with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra - but in 2001, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra must have seemed a doomed cause.
Even though it had survived for more than 80 years, five years ago it ended up crippled with acrimonies, no musical director and a $7 million debt.
By 2004, with English conductor Peter Oundjian at the helm, things looked more positive, and Steele's film celebrates that new start. The anguishes of three years earlier are barely mentioned.
Five Days in September celebrates the launch of Oundjian's first season. Steele's handycam sneaks behind the scenes to catch the conductor ironing shirts in his dressing room, shaving over sinks.
There is deathless CEO talk, and twittering press agents set up inane interviews.
Of course, the "rehearsals" often seem rehearsed. Oundjian tells his players he wants them to move from apprehensive through menacing and threatening to petrifying. If only Steele had had some access to some of 2001's sparring, she may have gone well beyond petrifying.
There are solid performance bytes worked into the flow, including Mahler's First Symphony and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, while Emanuel Ax gives us Chopin, Yo-Yo Ma the Dvorak Cello Concerto and Renee Fleming a few well-known arias.
The soloists open up to Steele. Fleming is sometimes over-earnest, but her plea for respecting the art form will have heads nodding in approval. In another marvellous moment, Ax confesses he is getting too old to tackle Chopin's F minor Concerto ("it's just so many notes").
Steele's quirky directorial hand is familiar from a few shows in the Arts Channel's playlist - Mark Morris dancing and camping his way through Dido and Aeneas, and a Handelian concoction titled The Sorceress starring Kiri Te Kanawa.
In Five Days, Steele has Ax and one of the horn section playing table hockey to Mahler, and manages to catch Fleming being pursued by a drag queen look-alike.
More impressive (and intrinsically filmic) is her clever use of split-screen technique - a good reason for not waiting till Five Days filters down to television.
On the negative side, I have to ask why there is no Canadian music here and nothing remotely contemporary (ironic when the orchestra is just about to give the Canadian premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's The Rider on the White Horse).
Otherwise, Steele has caught the beginnings of a remarkable rebirth.
The TSO has just announced a surplus from its 2005-06 season and a bumper fundraising year - a success that must be an inspiration to music-lovers around the world.
* Five Days in September opens tomorrow at Rialto Cinemas
