a screen industry in New Zealand. Most New Zealand films are made by independent filmmakers, often on a low budget and with sponsorship from public funding sources. Few New Zealand-made films have been specifically commissioned for the international market by international film distributors. Recently, international film companies have become more aware of the skills of New Zealand filmmakers, and have increasingly used the country as a shooting location and also somewhere to finish production of their feature films. Private funding for New Zealand films has often been in short supply, although for a period in the early 1980s, tax breaks resulted in a short term production boom. Some New Zealand directors and actors have been ignored in large part by their own country, despite success overseas, and often had to work in the US, Australia, and the UK as a result. History Early film: 1890s–1920s The first public screening of a motion picture in New Zealand took place on 13 October 1896 at the Opera House in Auckland. The screening—which was in fact a demonstration of Thomas Edison's kinetograph—was part of a show presented by Charles Godfrey's Vaudeville Company. The first screening of a colour film—one using a colour process, not just a colourised black-and-white film—was on 24 December 1911 in Auckland. The film was shown simultaneously at the Globe Picture Theatre in Queen Street and the Kings Theatre on Upper Pitt Street (now the Mercury Theatre). The first filmmaker in New Zealand was Alfred Henry Whitehouse, who made ten films between 1898 and mid-1900. The oldest surviving New Zealand film is Whitehouse's The Departure of the Second Contingent for the Boer War (1900). The first feature film made in New Zealand is arguably Hinemoa. It premiered on 17 August 1914 at the Lyric Theatre, Auckland. New Zealand's oldest surviving cinema is the Roxburgh, located in Central Otago. It was opened on 11 December 1897. The editors of the local newspaper, the Mt. Berenger Mail, wrote in the issue of 10 December: "We would draw the attention of the public to the Salon Cinématographe entertainment in the Athenæum Hall to-morrow evening. This is an opportunity which should not be missed of witnessing life scenes." The classical era: 1920s–1960s New Zealand's was a small-scale film industry between the 1920s and 1960s. In the 1920s and 1930s, Rudall Hayward made a number of feature films on New Zealand themes. Rewi's Last Stand