NZ On Screen

Passionless Moments

2013-05-23T23:45:40Z

Short Film, 1983, (Trailer)

“There are one million passionless moments in your neighbourhood; each has a fragile presence which fades as it forms.” So says a voice in this early Jane Campion collaboration with writer Gerard Lee (Sweetie, Top of the Lake). Made — without permission — while both were students at Australian Film, Television and Radio School, the short eulogises 10 such moments to wry effect, from ‘Sleepy Jeans’ (misheard lyrics), to ‘Sex ... Thing’ (idle yoga thoughts). The celebration of the micro-absurdity of suburban life showed in the Un Certain Regard slot at Cannes 1986.

Jim Hickey

2013-05-23T23:45:39Z

Weather Presenter

Jim Hickey has spent more than two decades using his dextrous vocabulary to pin down the likely path of sun, rain and wind. A longtime TV One fixture as weather forecaster on the primetime news, Hickey has also bought his distinctive presentation style to a host of other shows, including Country Calendar and A Flying Visit.

Shane Taurima

2013-05-23T23:39:33Z

Presenter, Producer [Ngāti Kahungunu]

Shane Taurima began presenting Māori current affairs show Marae after 12 years reporting from the Parliamentary press gallery. On TV's Q+A his interviewees have ranged from John Key to Tariana Turia. In May 2013, three months after becoming TVNZ’s General Manager of Māori and Pacific Programmes, Taurima announced a bid to represent Labour in the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti seat formerly occupied by late MP Parekura Horomia.

Dale Bradley

2013-05-23T23:39:33Z

Director, Producer

The prolific Dale Bradley has produced and directed feature films on both sides of the Tasman. After setting up company Daybreak Pictures with his brother Grant, and directing his first feature, Gallipoli tale Chunuk Bair, Dale Bradley developed and directed movies in New Zealand and then Australia. In 2013 the Bradleys established NZ/UK-based company Aristos Films.

Grant Bradley

2013-05-23T23:39:33Z

Producer

The career of Grant Bradley demonstrates that New Zealand producers can find many sources to fund their movies, beyond the beaten path to the Film Commission. Bradley set up company Daybreak Pictures in 1990. After producing more than 20 titles for Daybreak, he relocated to Australia in 2008 with his brother Dale. The duo established NZ and UK-based company Aristos Films in 2013.

In a Different League

2013-05-23T23:29:51Z

Television, 1990, (Full Length)

Presented by John Kirwan, this film looks at the 1990 decision of his young All Black teammate Matthew Ridge to ‘defect’ from rugby to play professional league for Manly Sea Eagles. Ridge had been the uncapped understudy to 1989 World Player of the Year, John Gallagher. Ironically Gallagher converted to league shortly after Ridge, news that Ridge receives as he prepares for his league debut (Ridge went on to captain the Kiwis). His code shift began a trend that transformed union and league in NZ; union turned pro in 1995. Directed by Ric (Sports Cafe) Salizzo.

Intersexion

2013-05-23T23:29:28Z

Television, 2012, (Excerpts)

Is it a boy? Is it a girl? What if it’s neither? This award-winning doco explores the world of the intersexed (formerly known as hermaphrodites) — those born with any one of 30 conditions that make their gender ambiguous. Presenter Mani Bruce Mitchell — NZ’s first ‘out’ intersex person — and director Grant Lahood had to travel overseas to find interviewees who would talk freely. They discuss living in a society with a binary view of gender which, at best, has made them all but invisible; and, at worst, has subjected many to damaging “corrective” surgery.

Tony Trotter

2013-05-21T00:06:07Z

Producer

Reporter turned producer Tony Trotter was a key figure in the long history of rural affairs show Country Calendar, helping pull the show out of the studio and towards a wider audience. The one-time radio reporter later won two Feltex awards producing shows for TVNZ’s fledgling Natural History Unit, for the flagbearing Wild South and Wildtrack shows.

Colin Follas

2013-05-21T00:05:48Z

Producer, Presenter

Producer Colin Follas worked on a long line of agriculture-related TV shows: from Country Calendar (which he regularly fronted, with such aplomb he was known as 'One Shot Follas') to specialist productions Ag Report and Farming with Pictures. He set up company Tiger Films, and produced shows ranging from corporate videos and food promotions to award-winning Treaty of Waitangi drama Nga Tohu: Signatures.

Julian O'Brien

2013-05-21T00:05:48Z

Producer, Director

Julian O'Brien, who shepherds the team of reporter/directors on Country Calendar, knows something about the job. He spent nine years in the field, before returning as the show's producer. O'Brien began as a newspaper journalist, and his broadcast career also includes stints directing current affairs, documentaries and corporate videos.

Fred Barnes

2013-05-21T00:05:48Z

Presenter, Executive

Fred Barnes founded Country Calendar in 1966. The show would become one of the longest running on the planet; and as presenter, Barnes became one of New Zealand's most widely-known TV personalities. After commanding rural broadcasting for state television and radio, Barnes trained journalists in Malaysia and headed Radio New Zealand's overseas programming division. He died 13 March 1993, at 72.

Grant Hindin-Miller

2013-05-17T02:50:15Z

Writer

For Auckland-born, Christchurch-based Grant Hindin-Miller, scriptwriting has been one facet of a busy creative life. The former teacher has written novels, six albums, and the scripts for three feature films: wartime romance A Soldier’s Tale (from the MK Joseph novel); Chunuk Bair (inspired by the Maurice Shadbolt play); and Depression-era odd couple tale Starlight Hotel (based on his own novel The Dream Monger).

Catherine Downes

2013-05-14T04:09:30Z

Actor [Ngāi Tahu]

Catherine Downes, MNZM, has won awards both for directing theatre, and her globetrotting one-woman shows about Katherine Mansfield. After launching theatre companies in Holland and the UK, she spent five years as artistic director of Christchurch's Court Theatre. On television, Downes played one of the flatmates in comedy Buck House, and starred as a doctor in Epidemic. Time in Australia saw her win a Sammy Award for film Winter of Our Dreams.

Matthew Grainger

2013-05-14T04:07:37Z

Writer

Fantasy fan Matthew Grainger has been a scriptwriter, copywriter and film critic. His first scripts were for short films and children's shows. Since then Grainger has worked with Jonathan King on multiple projects; joining King as co-writer/producer of a big screen remake of Under the Mountain, and on the script of horror tale The Tattooist. Grainger was also part of the writing team on South Auckland-set series The Market.

All of Us

2013-05-14T03:21:48Z

Where overseas efforts (USA for Africa, Band Aid) used celebrity choirs to combat hunger and poverty, NZ applied the formula to a yacht racing series. In the wake of ‘We are the World’ and ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’, this project promoted Team NZ’s first tilt at the America’s Cup with a host of musicians, broadcasters, sports people and Barry Crump raising their voices in unison. The 1987 challenge failed and All of Us remained a one-off, but one of its contributors, Dave Dobbyn, later put a lock on the Team NZ anthem with his own song ‘Loyal’.

Sailing Away

2013-05-14T03:21:48Z

Music Video, 1986

In this video billowing sails and an impressive array of mid-80s celebs (musicians, broadcasters and sports people) raise their voices in patriotic fervour to rally support for the first Kiwi challenge for the America’s Cup: “In a boat just called New Zealand”. The bid failed but ‘Sailing Away’ set a record for most consecutive weeks at number one by a NZ artist (a record held until Smashproof’s ‘Brother’ in 2009). The tune — borrowed from ‘Pokarekare Ana’ — remains as a reminder of simpler times in the America’s Cup, and of an era of questionable haircuts.

Chunuk Bair

2013-05-13T23:39:43Z

Film, 1991, (Excerpts)

This feature dramatises an ill-fated offensive that New Zealand soldiers undertook during World War I’s Gallipoli campaign. On 8 August 1915 the Wellington Battalion briefly seized Chunuk Bair, a pivotal peak overlooking the Dardanelles; they suffered huge losses. The film pitches the attack as a formative NZ nationhood moment, with Kiwi guts and resilience countered by inept, careless British generals, as much as their Turkish foes. Filmed on an Avalon set and on the Wainuiomata coast, the story was based on Maurice Shadbolt’s classic play, Once On Chunuk Bair.

Suzanne Paul

2013-05-12T23:42:46Z

Irrepressible infomercial queen Suzanne Paul made her name selling products like Natural Glow on the small screen but she’s always been keen to diversify her media profile. As well as television acting, presenting and competing (Dancing with the Stars), she has dabbled a toe in the music industry (despite freely admitting that she thinks her singing sounds like a “strangled cat”). In 1994, she made an unsuccessful attempt to launch a dance craze with her novelty song ‘Blue Monkey’; and, in 1997, she covered Dave and the Dynamos’ ‘Life Begins at 40’.

Blue Monkey

2013-05-12T23:42:46Z

Music Video, 1994

The career of TV infomercial queen Suzanne Paul took an unlikely turn in 1994 when she attempted to reinvent herself as a dance music diva (although the steps in question seem to be more inspired by line dancing). Paul told Metro magazine she did it to show she was more than "the intense over the top woman who sold things on television", but samples of her TV sales pitches — "1000s of luminous spheres" — blend in surprisingly well with Pitch Black member Paddy Free’s music (Boh Runga contributes vocals). The video was shot at the Staircase Nightclub on K Road.

Alex Galvin

2013-05-07T04:56:01Z

Writer/Director

Filmmaker and novelist Alex Galvin has studied everything from linguistics, music history and singing, to film. Alongside short films and dozens of corporate videos, Galvin has written and directed two low-budget features: 2007’s When Night Falls, a period thriller which sold to Canada and the United States, and 2012’s Eternity. Partly set in Hong Kong, the film melds elements of science fiction and the whodunnit.

Lost and Found: The Story of Cook's Anchor

2013-05-07T00:39:44Z

Television, 1979, (Full Length)

While in Tahiti to scout for locations for a film (ultimately unrealised) on the mutiny of the HMS Bounty, legendary British director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago) became fascinated by a lost anchor jettisoned by Captain Cook in 1773. Produced for New Zealand’s South Pacific Television, this film follows the anchor’s discovery — by River Kwai bridge exploder Eddie Fowlie — and salvage. A rare documentary credit for Lean, the film was written by his regular scripting collaborator Robert Bolt, and Kiwi Kelly Tarlton provides expert dive guidance.