News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Anna Paquin: “You Don’t Do It for Fame, Finance or Glory”

Anna Paquin: “You Don’t Do It for Fame, Finance or Glory”

“Sitting down with Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge, Paquin discussed the release of her newest independent movie at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic.” Tara Bitran reports for

Taika Waititi Reveals Details of ‘Jojo Rabbit’

Taika Waititi Reveals Details of ‘Jojo Rabbit’

New Zealand “director Taika Waititi has revealed more details of his upcoming projects Jojo Rabbit and Bubbles.” Orlando Parfitt reports for Screen Daily. “Waititi told Screen at the Karlovy Vary Film…

Thomasin McKenzie a Force of Nature

Thomasin McKenzie a Force of Nature

Might Debra Granik’s latest film launch New Zealand actress Thomasin McKenzie into the same stratosphere as the Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence? Vanity Fair investigates. Granik’s work feels like a salve to the kinetic blockbuster that fuels…

Yellow Is Forbidden Auckland Premiere

Yellow Is Forbidden Auckland Premiere

After premiering to fantastic reviews at Tribeca Film Festival, New York, Pietra Brettkelly’s Yellow Is Forbidden will be shown in Auckland at the upcoming New Zealand International Film Festival. “Kiwi director…

New Netflix Show for Tickled’s David Farrier

New Netflix Show for Tickled’s David Farrier

“If you’re a weird-documentary fetishist, you’re probably already obsessed with Tickled, an unbelievably strange saga featuring underground ‘tickle cells’ and a scheming, shadowy figure who spends thousands of dollars to ruin people’s lives,” Andrew…

J-Law-Like Rise of Thomasin McKenzie

J-Law-Like Rise of Thomasin McKenzie

This January, Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik returned to Sundance, to premiere her follow-up narrative feature, Leave No Trace. And she again brought with her a precocious talent in a role that could be…

Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s Latest: Wellington Paranormal

Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s Latest: Wellington Paranormal

“Police officers try to solve New Zealand’s most absurd paranormal and supernatural cases in Waititi and Clement’s new comedy series  Wellington Paranormal,” which is the first of a handful of continuations of Taika Waititi…

Slow Down With Low-Key Drama ‘Leave No Trace’

Slow Down With Low-Key Drama ‘Leave No Trace’

“Purposefully slow cinema can be a welcome respite from the craziness in both our world and multiplexes,” writes Linsey Bahr in an article for The Daily Democrat. “That is exactly…

Leave No Trace Star Thomasin McKenzie in Bustle

Leave No Trace Star Thomasin McKenzie in Bustle

“When celebrities hang out with Bustle editors, we want to give them the chance to leave their mark. Literally. So we hand them a pen, a piece of paper, a few questions, and ask…

Jane Campion’s the Piano Still Hits All The Right Notes

Jane Campion’s the Piano Still Hits All The Right Notes

“Rereleased after 25 years, this literary work about a mute woman in 19th-century New Zealand remains full of extraordinary images and enigmas,” writes Peter Bradshaw in a review in The…

Jane Campion on Why She Went Back to the Lake

Jane Campion on Why She Went Back to the Lake

Top Of The Lake: China Girl’s Jane Campion talks to film magazine Screen Daily about the importance of telling stories from a female point of view. “Motherhood is a very underwritten topic, especially in those…

London’s Calling in First Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines

London’s Calling in First Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines

The first full trailer for Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines has been released, reports Abid Rahman for The Hollywood Reporter. In the trailer the city of London…

Yoson An Cast in Mulan Live-Action Movie

Yoson An Cast in Mulan Live-Action Movie

“New Zealander Yosan An has joined Disney’s live-action movie Mulan as the main love interest Chen Hongui opposite Liu Yifei (also known as Crystal Liu) who is playing Hua Mulan,” reports Kylie Hemmert for…

Breaking up Is Easy for Sami and van Beek

Breaking up Is Easy for Sami and van Beek

Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek’s film The Breaker Upperers has opened strongly in New Zealand after warm-hearted reviews at the South by Southwest festival in Texas. This week, their comedy opens the Sydney…

It: Chapter Two Casts Jay Ryan as Adult Ben

It: Chapter Two Casts Jay Ryan as Adult Ben

Auckland-born actor Jay Ryan, 36, has been cast as the adult version of Ben Hanscom in New Line’s It: Chapter Two, sources confirmed to Variety. Ryan joins Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader, who…

Keisha Castle-Hughes Takes to the Boxing Ring

Keisha Castle-Hughes Takes to the Boxing Ring

She shot to fame as the fierce warrior Obara Sand on Game Of Thrones. But New Zealander Keisha-Castle Hughes, 28, will now flex her acting muscles in a different kind of drama, when she…

Jane Campion Rewatches Her Own Classic

Jane Campion Rewatches Her Own Classic

One of the world’s most unconventional filmmakers, New Zealander Jane Campion talks with The Guardian about the end of the patriarchy, doing away with decorum, and how losing her baby son changed her forever. Twenty-five…

TV Host Clarke Gayford on Fatherhood

TV Host Clarke Gayford on Fatherhood

Less than a month away from the birth – which will make Jacinda Ardern the first serving head of government since Benazir Bhutto to have a baby – television host Clarke Gayford, 40, who…

Julian Dennison Isn’t in a Hurry to Grow Up

Julian Dennison Isn’t in a Hurry to Grow Up

The 15-year-old New Zealand actor Julian Dennison talks to GQ magazine about his starring role in Deadpool 2 – even though he’s not old enough to see it. Dennison is not your average teenager, if…

Thomasin McKenzie Steals the Film in Leave No Trace

Thomasin McKenzie Steals the Film in Leave No Trace

Debra Granik’s third feature, Leave No Trace, which stretches the theme of life on the margins to breaking point, is already being talked of as one of the year’s best releases, according to The…

Heartthrob KJ Apa Answers Some Tricky Questions

Heartthrob KJ Apa Answers Some Tricky Questions

KJ Apa, the New Zealand import turned Riverdale star, captured hearts (and Instagram followers) when the show premiered in 2017. Riverdale was just renewed for its third season, so it looks like…

Leave No Trace with Thomasin McKenzie Cannes Hit

Leave No Trace with Thomasin McKenzie Cannes Hit

“Debra Granik is the exceptional film-maker who directed Winter’s Bone in 2010, launching the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and now she returns with this deeply intelligent, complex, finely tuned and observed movie, [starring New…

Anthony McCarten Freddy Mercury Biopic Trailer Out

Anthony McCarten Freddy Mercury Biopic Trailer Out

“The first footage of Bohemian Rhapsody will rock you,” according to Esquire magazine. Penned by New Zealand-born Anthony McCarten, the upcoming Queen biopic, starring Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury follows the formation of the…

Kim Chambers Swims Like No Other

Kim Chambers Swims Like No Other

Kim Chambers, a former ballerina who grew up on a sheep farm in the King Country has done what no other woman has yet achieved: swum the world’s most difficult ocean swim, from the…

New All Blacks Documentary “Looks Absolutely Breathtaking”

New All Blacks Documentary “Looks Absolutely Breathtaking”

“All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks is a new six-episode series and it promises to be a belter,” writes Paul Moore in an article for Joe.ie. Narrated by the “incredibly…

Unique Sneak Preview for Effects Man Matt Aitken

Unique Sneak Preview for Effects Man Matt Aitken

New Zealand-born VFX supervisor Matt Aitken talks about Marvel’s “unusual” move that helped make the biggest superhero blockbuster ever, Avengers: Infinity War. Aitken’s credits included an Academy Award nomination for visual effects for 2009’s District…

Actor Julian Dennison is Firefist in Deadpool 2

Actor Julian Dennison is Firefist in Deadpool 2

Julian Dennison is living the dream. The 15-year-old actor from Lower Hutt was hand picked by Ryan Reynolds to star in Deadpool 2, which hits cinemas on 16 May. As Reynolds told the

Filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly Celebrates Guo Pei

Filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly Celebrates Guo Pei

“When I was little, I didn’t know what fashion was. The word didn’t exist,” Guo Pei tells Whakatane-born documentarian Pietra Brettkelly in Yellow Is Forbidden, a new film charting the Chinese designer’s fierce ambition…

What We Do in the Shadows Gets TV Reboot

What We Do in the Shadows Gets TV Reboot

A long-in-the-works half-hour television comedy based on the 2014 mockumentary horror film What We Do in the Shadows, co-written and co-directed by and starring Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, is slated to premiere in…

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried star in Anon, a “timely Netflix-bound cyberthriller from The Truman Show and In Time creator New Zealander Andrew Niccol”. Stephen Dalton reviews the film for The Hollywood Reporter. “Owen looks…

John Cavill Wins Emmy for Scars of Nanking

John Cavill Wins Emmy for Scars of Nanking

New Zealand cinematographer John Cavill has won an Emmy – Outstanding Cinematography – for American/Chinese co-production Scars of Nanking at the Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. In

Sam Rockwell, ScarJo Join Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

Sam Rockwell, ScarJo Join Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

After breaking out in a major way in Hollywood by directing the critically acclaimed action-comedy Thor: Ragnarok, New Zealander Taika Waititi’s next film is going to…

Russian Film Fest Prize for Kieran Charnock

Russian Film Fest Prize for Kieran Charnock

New Zealander Kieran Charnock, 26, has won best actor at the Moscow International Film Festival for his role in the independent film Stray. The award was presented by Nastassja Kinski.

Scott Dixon Competes on American Ninja Warrior

Scott Dixon Competes on American Ninja Warrior

New Zealand four-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon will enter the realm of reality TV when he auditions in Indianapolis this week for American Ninja Warrior. Dixon, 37, nicknamed “The Iceman,” thought it sounded fun when…

Roger Donaldson On ‘Sleeping Dogs’ And ‘Cocktail’

Roger Donaldson On ‘Sleeping Dogs’ And ‘Cocktail’

“Cocktail, No Way Out, The Bounty, Species, The World’s Fastest Indian, Dante’s Peak – director Roger Donaldson’s resume is brimming with crowd-pleasing Hollywood movies, some of them seminal,” writes Simon Thompson in an article…

Sweet Country’s Sam Neill Marks Milestone

Sweet Country’s Sam Neill Marks Milestone

As is the case with many a beloved screen actor, everyone has their own mental image of Sam Neill, Karen Han writes for the Village Voice. For some, it’s of the prickly paleontologist Dr…

Karl Urban in Dubai for Comic Con

Karl Urban in Dubai for Comic Con

New Zealand actor 45-year-old Karl Urban “is basically Comic Con personified”, according to Arab News, “with a deep sci-fi fantasy pedigree running from Xena: Warrior Princess through Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Lord of the…

NZ’s Global Winners Celebrated in New Series Dream Catchers

NZ’s Global Winners Celebrated in New Series Dream Catchers

Many Kiwis who touch down in the UK for their OE or holidays “end up staying and living their dreams on the other side of the world.” Inspiring series Dream…

NZ Indie Film STRAY Selected for Moscow International Film Festival

NZ Indie Film STRAY Selected for Moscow International Film Festival

“Independent New Zealand feature film, STRAY, has made history by becoming the first New Zealand feature film ever to be selected for the world’s second oldest film festival – the…

Actor Sam Neill Stars in His First Western

Actor Sam Neill Stars in His First Western

Sam Neill’s acting career has broken the 80-film barrier. In his most recent film, Sweet Country, the New Zealander plays a missionary making a new life for himself on the Australian frontier in the…

Helen Clark Film Reveals a Shadowy World at the UN

Helen Clark Film Reveals a Shadowy World at the UN

Filmmaker Gaylene Preston’s documentary My Year With Helen playing in Australia this month provides a happy and timely reminder that before there was Jacinda Ardern, there was Helen Clark. The extraordinary post-parliamentary career of former…

Chasing Great a Universally-Appealing Sports Doco

Chasing Great a Universally-Appealing Sports Doco

Justin Pemberton and Michelle Walshe’s documentary Chasing Great, about world-champion All Blacks captain, Richie McCaw, “proves surprisingly accessible to non-fans, and a well-articulated look at some of the mental processes behind sports success,”…

True Blood Lead Anna Paquin Stars as PR Maven

True Blood Lead Anna Paquin Stars as PR Maven

New Zealand-raised Anna Paquin is returning to television. The True Blood and Alias Grace star is set to appear in the upcoming dramedy Flack. The limited series, which is co-produced by Paquin and her…

Taika Waititi to Play Version of Imaginary Hitler

Taika Waititi to Play Version of Imaginary Hitler

Whenever Fox Searchlight Pictures ends up releasing New Zealander Taika Waititi’s satire Jojo Rabbit, it will give viewers the chance to see a version of Adolf Hitler they most likely never have before. IndieWire…

Chasing Great – An Ode to New Zealand’s All Blacks

Chasing Great – An Ode to New Zealand’s All Blacks

“Justin Pemberton and Michelle Walshe’s documentary Chasing Great follows All Blacks team captain Richie McCaw through his final season,” writes Chris Packham in a review for the Village Voice. “Even if…

Thor: Ragnarok’s Hidden New Zealand and Australia References

Thor: Ragnarok’s Hidden New Zealand and Australia References

“There are fans who are going to want to come back for more just to notice every detail that New Zealand director Taika Waititi stuck in”  Thor: Ragnarok, writes Luke Y. Thompson in an…

Boy Fans Will Love The Breakers and Upperers

Boy Fans Will Love The Breakers and Upperers

If you enjoy contemporary New Zealand comedies like Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, then you should put this Taika Waititi-executive produced title The Breaker Upperers on your radar, recommends…

Maryanne Redpath at Helm of Berlinale’s Generation

Maryanne Redpath at Helm of Berlinale’s Generation

Within 10 years, former artist, teacher and filmmaker New Zealand-born Maryanne Redpath has turned the Berlinale youth section Generation into one of the most popular strands of the film festival, with a gem-packed programme…

Robyn Malcolm on Cleavage and Credibility

Robyn Malcolm on Cleavage and Credibility

It is something of a surprise to see New Zealander Robyn Malcolm looking positively restrained, wearing a conservative skirt and blouse, for her role as Maxine Pavich in the new ABC television drama series…

Anna Paquin Does Some Detective Work in Bellevue

Anna Paquin Does Some Detective Work in Bellevue

New Zealander Anna Paquin plays Detective Anna Ryder in the Canadian television series, Bellevue. “Paquin, whose onscreen presence guarantees an otherworldly, alienating grace, is doing more work than is first apparent,” Variety TV critic…

Shotover Tech Wizards Score Early Oscar for Aerials

Shotover Tech Wizards Score Early Oscar for Aerials

Queenstown design engineers John Coyle, Brad Hurndell, Vikas Sathaye and Shane Buckham have scored a jump on Margot Robbie, Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep a month before the Oscars. The group has just been…

Aaron Jeffery Gets into the Head of Chopper Read

Aaron Jeffery Gets into the Head of Chopper Read

A quirk of fate could have changed the path of Australian film history and seen New Zealander Aaron Jeffery play Chopper Read nearly 20 years ago. “I auditioned for the original Chopper movie,” Jeffery, 47,…

Braindead as Outrageous as it is Brilliant

Braindead as Outrageous as it is Brilliant

Peter Jackson’s 1992 “gore-fest” Braindead has been named one of the 30 most violent films ever made by entertainment website GamesRadar+. The list also includes Irreversible, Evil Dead and Cannibal Holocaust. Alex Avard writes for the…

KJ Apa to Star in Romantic Comedy The Last Summer

KJ Apa to Star in Romantic Comedy The Last Summer

New Zealander KJ Apa is coming back to the big screen. Teen Vogue reports that the Riverdale star recently got a part in the new movie The Last Summer, a romantic comedy that centres…

Vampires Get Their Teeth into Some Small Screen

Vampires Get Their Teeth into Some Small Screen

A television reboot based on Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s 2014 smash hit mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows has landed a pilot-production order at American channel FX. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the…

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie’s New Role Enigmatic

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie’s New Role Enigmatic

Among the most anticipated films of this year’s Sundance Film Festival has been Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, starring 17-year-old New Zealander Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie. Leave No Trace had its world premiere…