Allen Guilford

Movies

Riverworld
Director of Photography
A movie for the Sci Fi Channel based on the book series by Philip José Farmer. The location is Riverworld, a mysterious and treacherous land where every human who died between the years 99,000 BC and 2,200 AD has been resurrected on the banks of a huge river.
Aberration
Cinematography
A nature field researcher is investigating the strange extinction of small animals and insects in the area, which indicates that something is wrong. His suspicions are soon to be proven right when he meets May, who lives in a cabin in the forest nearby. May says that her house is infested by small creatures that she thinks are mice or rats. When the couple search the house further, they notice that they're not rodents or insects. They are fast evolving lizards that have the appetite for animals and humans, no matter what size their prey are...
Chicken
Director of Photography
On the premise that his albums will sell better if he is dead, an aging pop-singer fakes his own death. True enough, the money rolls in, but no one can get their hands on it because of the seven year waiting period before a missing person can be declared legally dead. However, a crazed animal rights terrorist, who knows he isn't dead, is trying to kill him, because of the singer's advertisements for fried chicken restaurants. Eventually, it turns out that the singer's manager is paying the terrorist to kill him.
Jack Brown: Genius
Cinematography
A thousand years ago, in England, the crazy monk Elmer wears a pair of wings and tries to fly from a high tower. He dies, and his soul is doomed to the eternity in hell for committing suicide. In the present days, in New Zeland, Elmer has the last chance to prove that men can fly and save his soul: his spirit enters in the brain of a very intelligent inventor, Jack Brown, and forces him to try to fly. Jack uses his last creation, an amplifier in a tape record, to succeed in the journey, but his invention is strongly desired by his former boss and his lover, who want to sell it to a Chinese investor. Jack's girlfriend helps him to accomplish his intent.
Bread & Roses
Director of Photography
Based upon the life of activist and trade unionist (and later MP) Sonja Davies. The film covers her life up to 1956, when, at age 33, she was elected to the Nelson Hospital Board. During this period she develops strong socialist beliefs, marries and divorces, at age 17 trains as a nurse, has a romance (and a child) with an American marine who is killed in WWII action. She battles tuberculosis and marries a former boyfriend when he returns from the war. She becomes part of a women's ill-fated campaign to save the Nelson railway line from closure and begins to be elected to political bodies.
Absent Without Leave
Director of Photography
In 1942 Wellington, Daisy Edwards, 16 and pregnant, relies totally on her just-wed husband, Ed, who is little older than she. Ed is suddenly drafted into the army and is to be sent overseas to battle while Daisy is sent to her father in Auckland. When Ed's leave is cancelled at the last minute he takes the dangerous decision to go absent without leave to be with Daisy on her journey home. As a deserter, Ed is hunted, captured and imprisoned. Life inside is bad enought without the worry of what is going on outside. The film is based upon a true story.
The Footstep Man
Director of Photography
Sam is a sound technician, who must literally walk in the footsteps of the characters on the screen. A "film within a film" that connects the world of modern film-making to the Paris of painter Toulouse-Lautrec and his model/lover Mireille.
Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree
Director of Photography
Pepe is the son of a successful Samoan businessman, who rejects his father's world and his Christianity. Although he becomes rebellious, anti-social and engages in criminal activity, as well as being expelled from school, he manages to establish himself in business. However, when he gets his girlfriend pregnant, he takes on the responsibilities of a family. Through his close association with half-cast dwarf, Tagata, he enters the supernatural realm of his traditional ways and begins to find some peace and meaning to his life.
Rud's Wife
Director of Photography
Nan, recently widowed by Rud, a religious eccentric, treats her idolised son Mark and his family to a Sunday roast. An ironic comedy about a disconnected New Zealand family.
Trial Run
Director of Photography
Housewife Rosemary Edmonds leaves her family to take up residence in a remote cottage on the Otago coastline so that she can conduct a photographic essay on the yellow-eyed penguin. No sooner has she moved in than she becomes the victim of a series of increasingly more malevolent attacks from an unknown assailant.