Campion on Frame

Jane Campion writes about her encounters with creative compatriot Janet Frame in The Guardian this month. The NZ-born filmmaker brought Frame’s life story to an international audience with her acclaimed film An Angel at my Table (1990), after approaching Frame for the rights to her autobiography as a 28-year-old film student in 1982. Campion describes Frame’s autobiography as “one of the most moving books I have ever read … the best book ever written by a New Zealander” and Frame herself as “not, as I sometimes thought, lonely, but [one who] lived in a rare state of freedom, removed from the demands and conventions of a husband, children and a narrow social world”. An Angel at  my Table won a slew of awards for Campion, including the Venice Film Festival’s Grand Special Jury Prize and the Toronto Film Festival’s International Critics’ Award. Janet Frame died of acute myeloid leukaemia in 2004, aged 79.