Film & TV | Independent (The)
25 October 2013
Bret McKenzie, 37, one half of the comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, stars opposite Jane Seymour in the new romantic-comedy Austenland, which opened in the UK in September.
“I’m not a crazy Jane Austen…
Film & TV | American Cinematographer
14 October 2013
Acadamy Award-nominee New Zealander Stuart Dryburgh is interviewed in the August issue of American Cinematographer magazine as part of the “Close-Up” section of the publication which each month features a member of the American…
Film & TV | Globe and Mail (The)
14 October 2013
New Zealand director and playwright Toa Fraser admits he wasn’t much of a dance fan before setting out to make Giselle, a new full-length film of the 1841 Romantic ballet of the same name,…
Film & TV | Telegraph (The)
13 October 2013
Star of 1920s-set gangster drama Peaky Blinders, New Zealand actor Sam Neill, talks about culinary havens, camping catastrophes, and fishing in Scotland in a Telegraph travel piece.
“This year, I’ve been to New York, Sydney,…
Film & TV
11 October 2013
Auckland-born Jay Ryan, 32, “brings a deep-voiced sensitivity to Vincent”, in his role as the “Beast” in the CBS remake of the 1980’s TV show Beauty and the Beast starring Ron Perlman and Linda…
Film & TV | Calgary Herald
8 October 2013
A beautifully shot documentary about a year in the life of a New Zealander living in Antarctica was the big winner at the Calgary International Film Festival, snapping up two of the major awards…
Film & TV | Telegraph (The)
8 October 2013
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, “one of the greatest opera sopranos of the past 40 years”, has joined Downton Abbey for a single episode to play Australian soprano Nellie Melba. The Telegraph’s Laura Thompson meets…
Film & TV | New York Times (The)
26 September 2013
Over one hundred long-vanished films, including movies by John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Mabel Normand, were quietly residing in the New Zealand Film Archive when Brian Meacham, an archivist for the Academy of Motion Picture…
Film & TV | New York Times (The)
23 September 2013
“Xena: Warrior Princess, which ran for six years before it ended in 2001, was a show that charmed even as it taught its audience a thing or two,” American former model and actress Jennifer…
Film & TV | KFTV
19 September 2013
New Zealand director Scott Walker, who is currently promoting his first feature film The Frozen Ground, talked recently to KFTV about all aspects of the production, from development and casting right through to getting…
Science/Tech | Guardian (The)
18 September 2013
The dream of resuscitating dinosaur species – a la Jurassic Park – has been dealt a death blow in a new study examining the decay rate of DNA in the bones of the extinct…
Film & TV | Adweek | Buzzfeed
17 September 2013
Public service announcements, or PSAs, are a tough nut for the advertising world to crack, particularly when tackling drink-driving or the dangers of drugs. Too often a worthy cause is “laughably ineffective preachy”…
Film & TV | Globe and Mail (The)
11 September 2013
“In 1953, no one even knew if it could be done,” says Auckland-based Leanne Pooley, director of the 3-D documentary Beyond the Edge, which chronicles Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s…
Film & TV | Irish Independent
5 September 2013
Auckland-born actress Danielle Cormack, 42, has said she jumps at the chance to play strong women, this time in the lead role of Bea Smith in Wentworth Prison, a contemporary reworking of Prisoner:…
Film & TV | Film Journal International
28 August 2013
New Zealand-born writer-director Scott Walker’s “impressive debut” The Frozen Ground, starring Nicholas Cage and John Cusack “amounts to an exploitation flick about the hunt for Alaska’s most notorious serial killer, but told with style and…
Film & TV | Huffington Post (The)
22 August 2013
New Zealand-born opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who has sung for presidents and princes, including in front of a 600-million audience at Prince Charles’s wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, has revealed…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
21 August 2013
New Zealand television series The Almighty Johnsons has been bought by American cable channel Syfy, marking the first time a wholly New Zealand-made television drama has aired in the United States.
The NBCU cabler has…
Film & TV | Montreal Gazette
9 August 2013
New Zealand stuntwoman Zoë Bell’s film Raze is screening at the Imperial Theatre as part of the one of the most influential genre film festivals in the world, the Fantasia International Film…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
5 August 2013
New Zealand actress Rose McIver, 24, who starred in Peter Jackson’s 2009 film The Lovely Bones, has landed the pivotal season three role of Tinker Bell on the ABC fairy tale drama, Once…
Film & TV | Harvard Business Review
3 August 2013
Kiwi director, Peter Jackson is a “game changer who transformed the practice of filmmaking”, according to contributors to the Harvard Business Review’s popular blog. Authors Vijay Govindarajan and Srikanth Srinivas say that Jackson and…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
2 August 2013
Executives from the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) have been meeting with producers at the Durban FilmMart (DFM) to research potential development and co-production opportunities. Representatives from the NZFC and the National Film &…
Film & TV | TimeOut
1 August 2013
Eight locally made short films will screen at the one-session New Zealand Short Film Festival held on 14 August in Sydney and 22 August in Brisbane. The films will screen representing the very best…
Film & TV | Telegraph (The)
31 July 2013
After more than two years, Peter Jackson has finished filming the final installment of The Hobbit trilogy. With the final scenes shot on 26 July, the award-winning director wrote on his Facebook…
Film & TV | Kotuku | The Escapist
26 July 2013
Originally from Christchurch, Michael Shanks, 22, otherwise known by his pseudonym “Timtimfed”, is creating some of the best gaming parodies on the web. Shanks was one of the hosts of a recent PAX Australia…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
22 July 2013
New Zealand director Jane Campion mini-series Top of the Lake has received eight Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Miniseries of Movie, Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries and Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries. The New Zealand-shot…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
22 July 2013
Jane Campion has revealed she wanted a bleaker ending for The Piano, with the character of mute Ada McGrath, played by Holly Hunter, drowning with her beloved instrument. It is one of the most…
Film & TV | 3 News
18 July 2013
New Zealand filmmaker Alex Galvin’s feature film Eternity has won two awards at the Madrid International Film Festival. Eternity won best editing, alongside Nick Swinglehurst and best supporting actor for Wellington actor…
Film & TV | BBC News | New Yorker | Sundance Film Festival
17 July 2013
Jane Campion’s television series Top of the Lake, “set in the staggeringly beautiful landscape of the South Island”, has been called New Zealand’s answer to The Killing. Obstreperous and tunnel-visioned, detective Robin Griffin has…
Film & TV | Vice
17 July 2013
New Zealand, “more like Babeland”, according to blogger Laura Vincent who writes about who she fancies for Vice magazine’s regular column, “Crush Cakes”. “Though my crushing is as vast as the majestic Lake Taupo,…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
2 July 2013
“From James Cameron’s organic farm to Emmy contender Top of the Lake, the idyllic island nation continues to thrive 12 years after Frodo and Co. put it on the movie location map,” The Hollywood…
Film & TV | Herald Sun
28 June 2013
Auckland-born actor, Logie Award-winning Aaron Jeffery, who graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1993, stars in the popular Australian television prison drama Wentworth, which will return to screens for…
Film & TV | Fast Company
19 June 2013
A video of Hobbit fans reacting to the release of a first glimpse into the next Hobbit instalment has received the same treatment, with Peter Jackson release a video with three of the film’s…
Film & TV | Huffington Post | New York Times (The) | Variety Magazine | Wall Street Journal (The)
14 June 2013
New Zealand documentary film maker Sally Rowe is continuing to make an impression with her documentary A Matter of Taste: Serving up Paul Liebrandt. The film is an “engrossing full-length documentary” that…
Film & TV | Manhattan magazine
12 June 2013
New Zealand actress Anna Paquin, 30, features on the June cover of Manhattan magazine. Paquin tells the publication about the new season of cult show True Blood, in which she stars as…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
10 June 2013
NZ Film Director Jane Campion headed up the Short Film and Cinefoundation Jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Campion and her jurors awarded the Best Short Film Palme d’or to Safe, directed by…
Film & TV | Age (The)
30 May 2013
The legacy of Flight of the Conchords has been the creation of a new stereotype for New Zealanders travelling in the US, writes James Robinson. Robinson, a New Zealand journalist who lives in San…
Film & TV | Empire Magazine
20 May 2013
Invercargill-born actor Marton Csokas, 46, has been busy of late playing Dr Kafka in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and, before that, working on both Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Sin City sequel A Dame To…
Film & TV | Cairns Post (The) | Cairns.com.au
16 May 2013
Wellington-born actor Karl Urban, 40, is Doctor “Bones” McCoy, one of the series’ most iconic Starfleet crew. Urban has tackled many iconic sci-fi and fantasy characters on the silver screen, but perhaps none more…
Film & TV | New York Post
15 May 2013
Amazing Race host New Zealander Phil Keoghan will produce and may become the face of a new, even more gruelling competition show that could air later this year. Under the working title, “The Phil…
Film & TV | Stuff.co.nz
6 May 2013
Paramount Pictures has confirmed that New Zealand will be the first nation to see Mr Pip, the film, on general release. Mr Pip is set on the island of Bougainville during the vicious civil…
Film & TV | Crave Online
3 May 2013
Auckland-born actress and stuntwoman Zoë Bell’s self-produced action/horror film Raze premiered at New York’s TriBeca Film Festival on 21 April. As well, Bell stars in Oblivion, alongside Tom Cruise, which also premiered last week….
Film & TV | South China Morning Post
2 May 2013
Actor and winemaker Sam Neill, 65, talks to the South China Morning Post about corks, cows and why action films are duller than they look. “Making good films and good wines are both very…
Film & TV | Daily Mail
29 April 2013
‘Thanks to the Lord of the Rings, and now The Hobbit, New Zealand one big photo opportunity for Tolkien fans’, says Helen Nicholson in The Daily Mail. Nicholson did a Hobbit Tour of…
Film & TV | Daily Mail
29 April 2013
Ever seen a movie trailer, then gone to the film and noticed something major was missing? Well, J Congdon, eagle eyed New Zealand film-goer, certainly did. But, unlike most, he did something about his…
Film & TV | CNN | Xinhua News
24 April 2013
Iconic New Zealand journalist Peter Arnett, 78, who ushered in the era of live television war reporting during the first Gulf War in 1991, will be the subject of a feature-length documentary called,
Film & TV | BBC News
24 April 2013
Director of award-winning film The Piano, Wellington-born Jane Campion, 58, will be presented with the Carrosse d’Or from the Society of Film Directors at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Campion will be…
Film & TV | Natural History New Zealand | New York Times (The)
23 April 2013
In 2012, more than 450 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa alone. The poaching is driven by the demand for rhino horn, used for traditional medicine in many Asian countries. ‘Battleground: Rhino…
Film & TV | USA Today
24 March 2013
New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson has given his fans a sneak online preview of the next Hobbit installment, The Desolation of Smaug. Enthusiastic and barefoot, Jackson gave a little masterclass in Middle-earth filmmaking and…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
18 March 2013
“Early signs suggest will bend toward something even more mysterious, beautiful, unsettling and satisfying than the mysterious, beautiful, unsettling, satisfying thing it is from the start,”…
Film & TV | Australian (The)
16 March 2013
“It is typical of and visualise a pregnant 12-year-old girl walking into it up to her neck, the central image of what…
Film & TV | Orange County Register
13 March 2013
New Zealand-born actress Stephanie Paul stars as the as the Palin-esque president of the United States, out to save the world in the German-Finnish-Australian thriller Iron Sky, which premiered in Berlin on 11 February….
Film & TV | Herald de Paris
13 March 2013
Film director and writer New Zealander Anna Wilding writes on ‘Digital Hollywood and the Role of Content Creators’ for Herald de Paris. Having attended the recent Digital Hollywood Media Summit in New…
Film & TV
7 March 2013
Stuntwoman and actress New Zealander Zoë Bell, 34, headlines a “sly subversion of the women-in-prison genre”, Raze, which is playing in the ‘Midnight Section’ as part of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival,…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
4 March 2013
World-renowned New Zealand soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is scheduled to appear on the popular British period soap opera, Downton Abbey. Producers of the show announced that Te Kanawa will appear as a guest…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
4 March 2013
The epic story of the first known ascent of Mt Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay is to be made into a 3D feature by award-winning New Zealand documentary maker Leanne…
Film & TV | BFI.org.uk
4 March 2013
When the world’s first 3D Creative Summit wanted some film production gurus to speak, it went to New Zealand to get them. Amongst the Summits distinguished guests were Phil Oatley and Meetal Gokul…