Here’s one for Kiwi film fans: Lindsay Shelton is flying in from Brazil this month to promote his book The Selling of New Zealand Movies.

For 22 years, Shelton was the Marketing Director for the New Zealand Film Commission and the book is a pretty good account of that time. For once, the blurb is accurate: ‘The inside story of the deal-making, shrewd moves and sheer luck that took New Zealand films from obscurity to the top of the world.’

You can catch the man himself at two bookshops in Auckland:

• Time Out (Mount Eden), Tuesday 15 November, 7.30pm

• Borders (Queen Street), Thursday 17 November, 6pm

If you can’t meet Shelton in person, it’s worth seeking out his book. It’s a broadly chronological biography-come-travelogue that plots Shelton’s movements through the industry, and is quite transparently based on diaries he kept.

I found it a fascinating peep into the world of New Zealand movies: there’s a sprinkling of politics, feuds and general chicanery, but also a strong sense that punches have been pulled for the sake of diplomacy. I’d love to known what Shelton really thinks of South Pacific Pictures’ John Barnett, for one.

There are many familiar directors in the frame (Jackson, Campion, Caro, Ward et al) and a lot of oddball trivia. Goodbye Pork Pie, for example, was often sold on the basis of the landscapes seen in the movie. But not in Japan:

The same landscape stopped the film getting a sale in Japan: there were so few cities and towns that distributors couldn’t believe the film’s anti-heroes were travelling a long distance. They said Japanese film-goers would expect to see many buildings on such a long journey.

It’s all good stuff. Shelton’s prose is not particularly polished, but he was in the right place at the right time, and he was the right man to write this book.

NB Shelton is in Brazil with Director Gaylene Preston, NZ On Air CEO Bernard Duncan, and Michael Brook of the NZ Film Archive. They’re part of a delegation to Imagem Dos Povos, a festival in the picturesque town of Ouro Preto.