News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Niki Caro’s Mulan “a dazzling, moving, hair-prickling spectacle”

Niki Caro’s Mulan “a dazzling, moving, hair-prickling spectacle”

An Empire reviewer bemoans this month’s “bittersweet” release of New Zealander Niki Caro’s live-action adaptation Mulan through online streamer Disney Plus. “Not only the best live-action Disney adaptation to date, but also a dazzling,…

Peter FitzSimons: “Australia should take back Christchurch killer.” Others disagree.

Peter FitzSimons: “Australia should take back Christchurch killer.” Others disagree.

“Asked by New Zealand media to summate the Australian reaction to the conviction of the Christchurch killer who grew up in Grafton only to murder 51 people in a Kiwi mosque in March last…

“I forgive you: Why victims’ empathy was kryptonite to the Christchurch killer”

“I forgive you: Why victims’ empathy was kryptonite to the Christchurch killer”

Reflecting on four days of victim impact statements prior to the life-without-parole sentence of the Christchurch mosque killer, Sydney Morning Herald columnist and senior journalist Jacqueline Maley wrote “The more I listened, the…

Story of WWII Spy Nancy Wake To Hit TV Screens

Story of WWII Spy Nancy Wake To Hit TV Screens

Anonymous Content, the company behind True Detective and The Revenant, has acquired the TV rights to the New York Times bestselling novel Code Name Hélène written by Ariel Lawhon about Wellington-born World War II heroine…

Why Everyone Wants A Piece Of Shift72

Why Everyone Wants A Piece Of Shift72

Many film companies have taken a battering during the pandemic. The opposite is true of New Zealand-based video streaming platform Shift72, which has grown by 400 per cent. Andreas Wiseman reports for Deadline. Business for…

Pete Oswald Skiing to Reforest Madagascar

Pete Oswald Skiing to Reforest Madagascar

New Zealand freeskier and photographer Pete Oswald, 35, speaks with Men’s Journal journalist Eliot Grover about his efforts to reforest Madagascar and alleviate poverty. This June, in a partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects, Oswald…

Though NZ Is Confronting a New Outbreak It Is Still Way Ahead of the USA – WashPost

Though NZ Is Confronting a New Outbreak It Is Still Way Ahead of the USA – WashPost

“Since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic, New Zealand has drawn global attention for the effectiveness of its response,” associate professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law Rebecca Hamilton writes…

Fix & Fogg Opens First Outpost in Houston

Fix & Fogg Opens First Outpost in Houston

Wellington-based gourmet peanut butter company Fix & Fogg has set up shop in Montrose, Houston in the US and you can get it at a walk-up window. Fix & Fogg was founded in 2013. After…

Director Jessica Hobbs Charged with Crown’s Finale

Director Jessica Hobbs Charged with Crown’s Finale

For New Zealand-born Jessica Hobbs, being asked to direct episodes of feted Netflix period drama The Crown was one thing but being tasked with helming the season finale was quite another, Nikki Baughan reports…

Kendo Expert Alexander Bennett Has Hand in WWII Kamikaze Pilot’s Memoir

Kendo Expert Alexander Bennett Has Hand in WWII Kamikaze Pilot’s Memoir

New Zealand-born scholar of Japanese history and martial arts Alexander Bennett has joined forces with fellow kendo practitioner, Shigeru Ohta, to write the English version of World War II kamikaze pilot Kazuo Odachi’s memoir,…

US Vogue Promotes the Soulful Teeks

US Vogue Promotes the Soulful Teeks

You’re about to hear a lot more from Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi, who goes by Teeks. The Māori soul singer is well known in New Zealand but is about to step onto a global stage…

Travel + Leisure Takes in the Best of Auckland

Travel + Leisure Takes in the Best of Auckland

Parnell’s Pasture was recently named one of the World’s Best Restaurants by Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine. “It’s worth planning a trip around,” New Zealand-based writer and editor Ellen Falconer recommends…

Wellington Library Book Returned after 118 years

Wellington Library Book Returned after 118 years

A book has been returned to a Wellington library 118 years after it was checked out, Yahoo News Australia reports. The Earl of Derby by George Saintsbury was borrowed from the Newtown Library in…

Taking Māori Narratives to Hollywood a Good Thing

Taking Māori Narratives to Hollywood a Good Thing

In a story published by Cambridge University student newspaper, Varsity, Emily Moss argues that we have “nothing to fear” from New Zealander Taika Waititi’s move into the mainstream, “as he seems intent on taking…

Journalist Laura Pitcher Chooses NY Over NZ

Journalist Laura Pitcher Chooses NY Over NZ

Friends and strangers told writer, editor, and designer Laura Pitcher she was “crazy” to leave New Zealand after a four-month visit “home” to return to the United States during the pandemic. But the New…

The Phoenix Foundation Returns With Hounds of Hell

The Phoenix Foundation Returns With Hounds of Hell

The Phoenix Foundation’s latest single, ‘Hounds of Hell’ features fellow New Zealand artist Nadia Reid, and it’s a momentous occasion, Tina Benitez-Eves reports for American Songwriter magazine. It’s the sextet’s first single in five…

Te Puna O Waiwhetū Reorients With Te Wheke

Te Puna O Waiwhetū Reorients With Te Wheke

“That Aotearoa New Zealand offers a rich vantage point from which to consider the tensions and affordances of displacement is the central claim of the generous, sprawling exhibition ‘Te Wheke: Pathways Across Oceania’,” Matthew…

Bayern Munich and Nuremberg Share Sarpreet Singh

Bayern Munich and Nuremberg Share Sarpreet Singh

It has been just over a year since Sarpreet Singh, 21, officially joined the Bundesliga giants, Bayern Munich, at number 10. The former Wellington Phoenix player is not only the first footballer of Indian…

Artist John Ward Knox Paints a Prime Minister

Artist John Ward Knox Paints a Prime Minister

Fortune has favoured John Ward Knox. The Auckland-born artist’s dual-layer portrait of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been recently released from Australian customs just in time to be entered into the Archibald Prize, Chloe…

Media Mogul Sinead Boucher Challenges Online Giants

Media Mogul Sinead Boucher Challenges Online Giants

Tucked away in Sinead Boucher’s sock drawer is the one-dollar coin that transformed the former journalist into New Zealand’s biggest media mogul, giving her a platform to challenge Facebook and other social media giants,…

Behrouz Boochani Just Wants to Be Free

Behrouz Boochani Just Wants to Be Free

Recently granted refugee status and now living in Christchurch, Behrouz Boochani fled Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. He exposed Australia’s offshore detention camps – from the inside. He survived, stateless, for seven years. Author and journalist…

Prodigious Singer Aleisha Malcolm in the Limelight

Prodigious Singer Aleisha Malcolm in the Limelight

Christchurch teenager Aleisha Malcolm is far from your average eighteen-year-old. The bright and accomplished singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and activist has impressed global audiences as her seemingly unstoppable career trajectory continues to reach new heights,…

NBL’s Hawks Sign Teen Rising Star Max Darling

NBL’s Hawks Sign Teen Rising Star Max Darling

Australian professional basketball team The Hawks has added one of New Zealand’s top young players for the 2020-21 NBL season, signing forward Max Darling to a three-year deal, Olgun Uluc reports for ESPN. Like every…

Pavlova’s Origins Date Back Two Centuries

Pavlova’s Origins Date Back Two Centuries

New Zealanders and Australians have long argued over who invented the pavlova, but the authors of a new book called, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets have found the dessert’s origins go back…

Looking Back at a Squash Legacy With Susan Devoy

Looking Back at a Squash Legacy With Susan Devoy

In recognition of Rotorua-born squash player Susan Devoy’s exalted status PSA website caught up with the sport’s only ‘Dame’, who ranks only behind the great Heather McKay and Malaysian legend Nicol David in the major…

New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change

New Zealand’s Glaciers Testament to Climate Change

New research has found extreme melting of New Zealand’s glaciers in 2018 was at least ten times more likely due to human-caused global heating, Graham Readfearn reports for The Guardian. Twice a year, glaciologist Lauren…

Persian Influences Define CHAII’s Unique New EP

Persian Influences Define CHAII’s Unique New EP

CHAII is of New Zealand’s “most formidable new artists”, according to Happy’s Dan Shaw. On top of a string of singles, she provided the soundtrack to a Fendi campaign and is the first New…

Director Sam Stuchbury Wins Cannes Prize

Director Sam Stuchbury Wins Cannes Prize

Aucklander Sam Stuchbury has won a Silver Screen Young Director Award at Cannes for his work in raising awareness about the effects pornography has on children, directing the government-funded viral porn commercial “Keep It…

Lock Andy Haden Key Player in AB History

Lock Andy Haden Key Player in AB History

All Blacks lock Andy Haden, who “was an exceptionally talented, intelligent and resilient lock, among the best in the world in his era,” has died in Auckland, aged 69. The Japan Times has published an…

Robin Hammond’s Zimbabwe Images Show in France

Robin Hammond’s Zimbabwe Images Show in France

New Zealand-born Robin Hammond is one of ten photojournalists whose work is currently on show at Fondation Carmignac’s newly opened private museum on Porquerolles island, France. Fondation Carmignac is exhibiting each photographer’s work in…

London Health Worker Natalie Scott a Free Sister

London Health Worker Natalie Scott a Free Sister

Clinical lead physiotherapist for critical care at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, New Zealander Natalie Scott, has received the Freedom of the City of London – a recognition awarded to people who have achieved success, recognition or celebrity…

Like Obama Allbirds Have Widespread Centrist Appeal

Like Obama Allbirds Have Widespread Centrist Appeal

Monthly men’s magazine GQ highlights former US president Barack Obama’s penchant for Allbirds, a wool trainer created by New Zealander Tim Brown and American Joey Zwillinger, and a Silicon Valley go-to. According to style feature…

Gillian Lynne and Peter Land Foundation Encourages Students in Performing Arts

Gillian Lynne and Peter Land Foundation Encourages Students in Performing Arts

Launched last year, the Gillian Lynne and Peter Land Foundation continues the work of choreographer Gillian Lynne, whose widower, Taihape-born actor Peter Land tells Nick Smurthwaite, a journalist for The Stage, how the fund…

New Zealand Grants Behrouz Boochani Refugee Status

New Zealand Grants Behrouz Boochani Refugee Status

Behrouz Boochani, 37, a Kurdish-Iranian refugee who wrote the award-winning book, No Friend But the Mountains on his mobile phone while held in one of Australia’s notorious Pacific detention camps, has been granted asylum…

Scarlets Names Sean Fitzpatrick Board Member

Scarlets Names Sean Fitzpatrick Board Member

Welsh rugby team Scarlets has appointed legendary former New Zealand captain and World Cup winner Sean Fitzpatrick, 57, as a new board member, the BBC reports. Fitzpatrick joins as a non-executive director and global ambassador. “I’m…

Oscar Hetherington Wins Photo Award for Backwash

Oscar Hetherington Wins Photo Award for Backwash

Otago-based Oscar Hetherington has won the Grand Prize at the Sony Alpha Awards 2020, Kiro Evans reports for The Scottish Sun. Hetherington was awarded the accolade for his submission ‘Backwash’, which was hailed as…

Tim Dodd Appointed Dean of Texas Tech College of Human Sciences

Tim Dodd Appointed Dean of Texas Tech College of Human Sciences

After two years as acting and interim dean of Texas Tech University’s College of Human Sciences, New Zealander Tim Dodd is taking the reins in his own right, Fox 34 News reports. Dodd will…

How New Zealand Is Beating the Coronavirus Pandemic

How New Zealand Is Beating the Coronavirus Pandemic

“The United States is a pandemic-policy mess, and the whole world is watching the meltdown,” Markos Kounalakis writes for the Washington Monthly. “How did such a small place take on such…

Calling All Change Agents

Calling All Change Agents

In the mid 1980’s when the Whakatu meatworks closed we ran a programme at Waiohiki to support workers made redundant by the extraordinary restructuring of our economy. Men and women who previously had been…

Third Straight Win for Scott Dixon at Road America

Third Straight Win for Scott Dixon at Road America

Winning an IndyCar race is nothing new for New Zealander Scott Dixon, particularly this year. But getting to celebrate as fans cheered him on for the first time all year made his victory at…

UFC Champ Israel Adesanya on Cover of Video Game

UFC Champ Israel Adesanya on Cover of Video Game

The newest Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) video game has been announced – and on the cover, is New Zealander Israel Adesanya (pictured right). ESPN’s Marc Raimondi reports. Middleweight champion Adesanya and American welterweight star Jorge…

New Zealanders Pen Music for Dalai Lama’s Album

New Zealanders Pen Music for Dalai Lama’s Album

New Zealand couple, musicians and producers Junelle and Abraham Kunin, have recorded the music of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s debut album, Inner World, an album with 42 minutes of mantras and chants set…

Eric Watson Breaks Own Wheat Yield World Record

Eric Watson Breaks Own Wheat Yield World Record

Ashburton farmer Eric Watson has taken the Guinness World Record for the highest wheat yield for the second consecutive time, with a staggering 17.398t/ha crop, Andrew Swallow reports for UK magazine, Farmers Weekly. Watson (pictured…

Actor Michael Dorman Star of Creepy New Thriller

Actor Michael Dorman Star of Creepy New Thriller

Veteran actor Auckland-born Michael Dorman, 39, stars as Jack Shaughnessy, an ambitious TV sports reporter in the new six-episode Australian thriller The Secrets She Keeps screening on US channel, Sundance Now. The New York Post…

Judith Collins Named National Party’s New Leader

Judith Collins Named National Party’s New Leader

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, widely known for her exhortations to kindness and compassion, will face Judith Collins – a combative, tough-talking conservative lawmaker who styled herself after Margaret Thatcher – in the country’s general…

The Beths Brand With Self-Doubt

The Beths Brand With Self-Doubt

When The Guardian’s Brodie Lancaster’s video call connects with Auckland songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, he writes that he realises she’s opted for an audio-only chat and switches his camera off too. It’s the kind of…

How NZ Became an Apocalypse Escape Destination

How NZ Became an Apocalypse Escape Destination

In Queenstown – a picturesque ski spot that often attracts comparisons to Aspen, Colorado – rumours about foreigners investing in apocalypse-proof bunkers have been swirling for years, CNN correspondent Julia Hollingsworth writes. They’re referenced by…

New Zealand Live Lobster Exports to China Surge

New Zealand Live Lobster Exports to China Surge

New Zealand exports of live lobster are surging as Chinese gourmets return to restaurants, Bloomberg reports. More than 300 tons of the crustaceans were airfreighted to China in May, up 53 per cent on…

Kiwa is Isaac Burrough’s Sustainable Superyacht

Kiwa is Isaac Burrough’s Sustainable Superyacht

Daily web magazine Designboom features New Zealand-born Amsterdam-based designer, Isaac Burrough’s “forward-thinking superyacht concept … developed to maximise both current and future sustainable technologies.” “Named after the Māori guardian of the ocean, Kiwa measures 110m…

Hugh McCutcheon’s Minnesota Gophers the #1 USA Women’s College Volleyball Pick for 2020

Hugh McCutcheon’s Minnesota Gophers the #1 USA Women’s College Volleyball Pick for 2020

Christchurch-born Olympic Gold Medal volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, in his eighth year as coach of the University of Minnesota’s women’s volleyball team The Gophers, is preparing for the 2020 season with his incoming team…

World’s Newest Dark Sky Park Announced in NZ

World’s Newest Dark Sky Park Announced in NZ

New Zealand is quickly becoming one of the top dark sky destinations on earth, Valerie Stimac reports for Forbes, with the country home to two International Dark Sky Association (IDA) certified Dark Sky Sanctuaries –…

Emma G Battling Bigotry With Music in D.C.

Emma G Battling Bigotry With Music in D.C.

Few could have foreseen the landmark events that would embroil the US in upheaval but for former Hamiltonian Emma Ghaemmaghamy, better known as Emma G, the situation has proved surprisingly fertile territory for her…

A Country Can Best Heal When it Acknowledges Past Injustices says Sociologist

A Country Can Best Heal When it Acknowledges Past Injustices says Sociologist

What would happen if you lost your land and ended up as a second-class citizen in your own country? asks American medical sociologist Robert Bartholomew in an opinion piece for Psychology Today. “New Zealand is a land…

Helen Clark to co-Lead WHO COVID-19 Panel on Global Response, Future Prevention

Helen Clark to co-Lead WHO COVID-19 Panel on Global Response, Future Prevention

“Avowed multilateralists” New Zealander Helen Clark and Liberian politician Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will lead a World Health Organization (WHO) panel scrutinising the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic just as international institutions are under…

Supalonely Singer Benee Speaks with Teen Vogue

Supalonely Singer Benee Speaks with Teen Vogue

Twenty-year-old Aucklander Benee recently performed her TikTok mega hit “Supalonely” on two popular US television programmes, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and the Ellen Show. In June, she spoke to Teen Vogue about…

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan on Future of Travel

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan on Future of Travel

Los Angeles-based Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race, has been working on a new competition show for CBS called Tough As Nails featuring essential workers, which finished filming before the coronavirus outbreak and premieres…