Ending New Zealand’s Housing Crisis is a film by Harry Booth, Haidon Evans and Jade Hunter. The film was produced as part of a Stage 3 COMMs class Documentary and Social Change (2021) taught by Annie Goldson at the University of Auckland. Aotearoa New Zealand is in the midst of a housing crisis. Costs of construction, soaring rents and a depleted public housing sector has caused a lot of pain. Successive governments have failed to solve the problem of providing citizens with an adequate place to live. As house prices sky-rocket, the country becomes increasingly divided by homeownership with fewer and fewer able to step onto the property ladder. But activist, researcher, and policy analyst Jordan King envisions a path out of the crisis.
The class had about 45 students. Working in groups of three, students produced a ‘mini-documentary’ – 2-3 minutes long – based around an interview with a ‘social change’ maker. Half way through the class, we had to go into lockdown so students had to respond (creatively). They all recorded their primary interview on Zoom and figured out how to illustrate the interview gathering images safely through archive searches and iPhone recordings. – Professor Annie Goldson.
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Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this film reflect the views of the subject and not necessarily the views of The Big Q.
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