Getting a storyteller to tell their story is an interesting experience. They’re sharp as tacks when you ask them a question they like and will dart around questions they’re not fond of, but they will always deliver the goods, because, like print journalists, stories are their bread and butter. This was the experience that I had interviewing Chris Banks and Andy Jalfon from Number 8 Films, two people with a passion for storytelling and real gratitude for being able to tell theirs. 


“I choose to write stories that hit me in the gut, rather than a tick-the-box kind of fashion,” says Chris Banks, director for Number 8 Films. I decided to make a career out of film after watching Schindler’s List and again after seeing Citizen Kane – these are stories that affected me emotionally, mentally, physically and in terms of film, technically. Since then, films have been my main focus.”


Chris took an alternate route to many budding Speilbergs – instead of toiling away at an expensive film school, he took matters into his own hands to learn the craft. 
“I’d seen students come out the other end of film school and then have to start at the bottom of the ladder as a runner or a grip. I thought, ‘Bugger that, I could use that money to make a film’, and so I took out a bank loan and financed my first film, Quiet Night In. That was my film school!”


About three years later, he met fellow cinephile Andy Jalfon, who had just completed a short film course and was teaching others how to make films. 
“Chris and met up over a drink and Chris told me he had a plan – to direct and shoot one film a year,” says Andy. “I said I was interested in producing films and would like to work with him. We decided around this time to make a short film and Chris came up with the idea of Teddy, our first production together.” 


After making Teddy, a short film about a lovelorn Brit who travels to New Zealand to see his ex (and meets his ex’s new, bearish partner), Chris and Andy set up Number 8 Films, the company that has so far achieved the goal of one film a year. But that’s just the kicker.


“With Teddy, we travelled to San Francisco, Los Angeles and London, supporting the film internationally,” says Andy. “There are a lot of people in the States and in Canada who are trying to scrape together money to make films and we’ve met a lot of these people on the gay film circuit.”


Chris says, “As an adjunct to making films and showing them around the world, we’ve been able to set up gay film nights, a monthly event that we showcase our own work at whilst bringing other gay films here. Gay film festivals are great but we thought, ‘Why wait until once a year for this sort of thing?’ So now we put on these events once a month and give the audience a little something special – we have cabaret seating, hand out snacks and often have Skype interviews or something similar at the end of the screening.”


When it comes to their own films, Chris and Andy like to apply that same “a little something special” approach and their most recent triumph, The Colonel’s Outing, is just that. The film tells the story of Tristan Arthur Jones and his rest home friend The Colonel, who spend a blissful day together telling stories of life, love and war. The film was sponsored by the very lateral thinking Mental Health Foundation – Chris says this sponsorship spawned a great relationship with Number 8 Films.


“We were looking around various organisations we could approach about funding for the film. Gay men are at a much higher risk of suffering from depression and older people are marginalised and not seen as visible. So I decided to approach the program manager at Out of the Blue [an organisation that tackles men’s depression] who is a real out-of-the-box thinker and not the sort of person who would just make some posters for a campaign. They said yes and funded the film.


“The great thing for the foundation is that they have this film that’s being seen by a lot of people and the spin-off effect is that people are talking about the issues raised in the film. As a result of all the publicity, there is a company making a short documentary about aging and elder care in New Zealand and that’s all to do with them finding out about The Colonel’s Outing; they’ve used the film as a springboard to start talking about the issue.”


Chris and Andy continue to work with the foundation on a number of projects that tell the stories of ordinary New Zealanders living with mental illness. Their most recent project was to speak to Greg, a man living who has been living with schizophrenia for 30 years.
Andy says, “It was the most extraordinary experience meeting this guy and his family and seeing the support the whole farming community was giving this man.”


Chris says, “It was so moving to see this rural family include and accept him – his illness is taken into account but he’s not seen as strange or different; he’s just uncle Greg. I get quite moved at the thought of how people are going to react to seeing this film and it’s a good feeling.


“It’s the same feeling I get when I think about the gay films that we make and the potential impact that can be had from telling untold stories. I always felt very strange growing up, and then I came out into the gay community and it seemed like another uniformity that I didn’t fit into. That word diversity we bandy about doesn’t always fit – we’re expected to act and look a certain way in the gay community and I didn’t feel that sort of comfort to be who I was. To be able to tell these stories of outsiders and people on the fringes is very important to me.”


Stories about minorities are common for Number 8 Films. All three shorts produced by the company over the past three years have had gay themes. But don’t mistake Chris for a person pushing an agenda; he says he simply tells the stories he knows how to tell.


“I constantly get asked if we only make gay films and do it deliberately,” he says. “No one ever asks heterosexual filmmakers if it was a conscious decision for them to make heterosexual films! You write from life, your experiences and what’s closest to you – my life and experiences involve feeling intimate and emotional and sexual feelings towards other men.”


Number 8 Films is stepping away from fiction for a while to concentrate on documentary projects that will be coming out over the next three years. Shooting is intense and requires a lot of forward planning, but it’s not a chore for these two.


“To tell these stories requires significant travel and a lot of flexibility, but you do what you’ve got to do to get it done,” says Andy. “Telling stories is great fun – it’s not a job.”


“There are so many interesting stories to tell in our community,” says Chris. “It feels like you’ve struck gold and no one else knows the source. It’s very affirming to be able to do this – I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”



| Hannah JV

Number 8 Films’ top film picks


Patrik, aged 1.5 (2008)

Shelter (2007)
Urbania (2000)


Big Eden (2000)
The Sum Of Us (1994)


Rope (1948)