Australia, meet Reg

The first full-length documentary on NZ-born artist Chris O’Doherty (AKA Reg Mombassa) screened on Australia’s SBS in May. Golden Sandals: The Art of Reg Mombassa explores the links between the artist’s NZ upbringing, suburban landscape art and iconic surrealist work for surfwear label, Mambo. “I am always disturbed by films that tell us about the artist. I wanted it to be of the artist,” says filmmaker Haydn Keenan, who took a more personalised approach by mixing traditional interviews with quirky animated sequences featuring classic Mombassa characters such as the Australian Jesus. Mombassa describes the film as “an archeological suburban dig” and admires Keenan’s unconventional documentary style: “In a lot of art documentaries it is just the artist sitting there talking.”