Oh hi there

Now this guy, Ant Timpson, is a pretty interesting man. He started the V48HOURS film festival, the Incredibly Strange Film Festival and he founded 2Brothers Films, Secret Cinema and Cinema Circus. It shouldn't be hard to tell from all of this that he's quite into films. Also, he's a great supporter of emerging film making talent in this country. We thought today would be the perfect time to say Oh hi there to Ant, given that the Auckland City V48HOUR finalists are being screened tomorrow night at SkyCity Theatre.

1. My day job is Producing, distributing, exhibiting, programming, marketing, eating and loving film.. but I’m also into leaving witty comments on Facebook that go down like bowls of cold sick.

2. If we gave you the day off tomorrow, what would you do?
My body would instantly go into shock and to all I would appear dead. Days later, after an embarrassing autopsy in which I played dead, too mortified to reveal I was actually alive, I would find the sleep I crave. Unfortunately I would do so before reminding anyone that I am indeed still alive. Waking up inside a coffin would be (at first) rather terrifying, but then the realisation would dawn upon me that inside that small confined space I have nothing to do and nowhere to be - just a big whole lot of nothingness - and before the air runs out I’d think to myself, "goddamn is it peaceful and quiet in here," and then I’d do a small smile and slowly drift off to sleep.

3. Who makes the best coffee in Auckland?
I’ve gotten into knife fights over this - they were plastic knifes but you can still give someone a nasty burn if you rub them back and forth fast enough. Coffee is important to me. I average around twelve cups a day. If I don’t have one by 8am someone is getting a beat down. Even my favourite places have off days, so it’s hard to recommend one location as everyone slips up now and then. I really like Brodie and Stephen at Meola Kitchen in Westmere, they consistently make a good cuppa. Chris makes an okay coffee but you also get bitter wisdom with each cup, which is invaluable. I’m a coffee hobo, I’m like Lee Marvin in Emperor of the North, jumping from train to train to wherever it's warm and away from idiots. Love the coffee and people at Monterey too. Also really good too is Fiesta in Pt Chev. There are some completed overrated joints that need to clean their damn units and keep their cups warm!

4. What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten in this city?
Well apart from the all you can eat contest we had at Ghengis Khans back in the 90s, I’d have to say the degustation menus at French Café and Merediths are hard to top. Obviously you can only do fine dining of that calibre six days a week, so for the Sundays we like trying to find the perfect dumplings at various Yum Cha. People should keep an ear out for a sandwich I'm designing called "The Bypass" , which will be debuting by the fine chefs at Meola Kitchen very soon. It involves crispy pork belly & bread. I can't say anything else as loose lips and all that jazz.

5. Pick a book & park you’d like to read it in, anywhere.
I like to drive up to Coyle Park next to couples making-out and read true crime books about the Zodiac Killer. Eventually they’ll look over and see what mr creepy is doing in the next car next and BOOM! Watch the tension rise.

6. What’s your most memorable V48HOURS moment?
There have been a tonne of fun moments over the years but the most memorable would be when the Downlow Concept’s 48 film ONLY SON actually was nominated then won Best Short Film at the Qantas NZ Film & TV Awards. It was the defining moment for the competition and those guys as filmmakers.

7. What has been your favourite combination of compulsory elements since the festival began? (for those who aren’t aware, each year the participants must include a particular prop, line of dialogue and character in their short).
Oh man the year we had the misfortune to have a banana, a character called Bodil DeRezny; An Animal Lover, and I think the line was “just put that down nice and easy”, resulted in the most insane shorts ever being made for the competition, full of weird perverse animal/human couplings.

If you want to head along to the Auckland City Finals on Saturday night, you can find out more info here, or go straight to the ticket-buying place here.

And guess what? Our awesome film guru Benj Brooking is one of the finalists! Goooooo Benj!