News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Sapling Records to Plants Trees for Albums Sold

Sapling Records to Plants Trees for Albums Sold

New Zealand drum ‘n’ bass/ambient producer Fis, real name Oliver Peryman, has a focus on reforestation through music. His new label Sapling Records is foregoing the current vinyl trend in favour of botany.

Melanie Lynskey on Finding Her Feet in Hollywood

Melanie Lynskey on Finding Her Feet in Hollywood

New Zealander Melanie Lynskey​ is the star of Castle Rock, but it’s not in her nature to act like one, so between takes, she hangs out with the extras and crew. The television series,…

Bones Hillman On Great Circle Midnight Oil Tour

Bones Hillman On Great Circle Midnight Oil Tour

For Bones Hillman, the New Zealander who replaced Midnight Oil bassist Peter Gifford in 1987, The Great Circle “has been more than a tour. It’s reconnecting with people.” After the Oils split in 2002, Rob…

Flight of the Conchords Announce UK Tour Dates

Flight of the Conchords Announce UK Tour Dates

Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie are back, and will tour the UK and Ireland in March 2018 for the first time in more than seven years. The ‘Flight of the…

Actor Beulah Koale Shines as Heartfelt Warrior

Actor Beulah Koale Shines as Heartfelt Warrior

“Miles Teller hits the true note, and so does the rest of a superb cast , in a drama of Iraq War veterans that sidesteps all the coming-home clichés,” Variety’s Owen…

Time Travel with Aldous Harding

Time Travel with Aldous Harding

New Zealander Aldous Harding, who is currently promoting her album Party in Europe, has released a new single from the LP. Elation is The Guardian’s ‘Track of the Week’. Hannah Davies writes for the newspaper: “With her…

Taika Waititi Puts His Stamp on the Thor Franchise

Taika Waititi Puts His Stamp on the Thor Franchise

In many ways, Taika Waititi neatly fits the mould of a lively director plucked from indiedom and placed at the centre of a franchise. He’s stylish, funny and confident, Dan Kois writes in a…

All of Paris on Board with FIAC Says Jennifer Flay

All of Paris on Board with FIAC Says Jennifer Flay

Jennifer Flay, the New Zealand-born director of FIAC who began her job in 2003, recalled a headline in a French magazine at the time that summed up the fair’s ups and downs: “FIAC at…

Step Back in Time With Rebecca Gibney

Step Back in Time With Rebecca Gibney

Crossing the Tasman Sea when she was just 19-years-old, Levin-born actress Rebecca Gibney, who currently stars in television drama series Wanted, has become one of Australia’s most popular actresses. Recently, the 52-year-old four-time Logie winner…

Musician Jordan Rakei in Perpetual Transition

Musician Jordan Rakei in Perpetual Transition

New Zealand-born musician Jordan Rakei’s new album Wallflower is out now, and it’s an intoxicating return that doubles as Rakei’s first true statement as a Londoner, Clash magazine reports. “I only moved here two and…

Why Bob Dylan Matters to Author Richard Thomas

Why Bob Dylan Matters to Author Richard Thomas

“It took six months for New Zealander Richard Thomas to draft the manuscript for his newest book, Why Bob Dylan Matters, a study, among other things, of the songwriter’s deep and abiding connection to…

How to Win the Man Booker Prize

How to Win the Man Booker Prize

The upstairs room of an indie bookstore. A book launch for a local author. Crisps and wine are being handed out, a buzz is in the air, congratulations are showered upon the young writer….

Thor: Ragnarok Marvel’s Best Film to Date

Thor: Ragnarok Marvel’s Best Film to Date

Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok has an “oddly beautiful scuffed-plastic aesthetic”; it’s “funny, charming, dazzling, gorgeously designed, and full of actors you already like,” with Waititi managing “to finally imbue Marvel’s dullest Avenger with a…

Bittersweet Return to Georgia for Amos Chapple

Bittersweet Return to Georgia for Amos Chapple

One man who knows the country of Georgia better than most is Amos Chapple. The New Zealand photographer, known for his pioneering use of drones, has been a regular visitor for the last seven…

Sara Wiseman and Craig Hall Acting Up Together

Sara Wiseman and Craig Hall Acting Up Together

New Zealand actors and couple Sara Wiseman, 45, and Craig Hall, 43, work together on Australian series A Place to Call Home. Wiseman, who grew up in Auckland, gives the Herald Sun her tips…

John Clarke Remembered by Popular Radio Host

John Clarke Remembered by Popular Radio Host

New Zealander John Clarke was “adored and admired” by the host of 3AW breakfast radio, Ross Stevenson, who dominates Australia’s most competitive radio market, Melbourne. Clarke and Stevenson co-wrote the ABC TV comedy The Games…

New Zealand Film Team Transforms London

New Zealand Film Team Transforms London

The bestselling book by Peter Reeve, Mortal Engines, is now being adapted for film by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, with visual effects specialist New Zealander Christian Rivers directing the project and…

Neil Finn’s Latest is a Quiet Masterpiece

Neil Finn’s Latest is a Quiet Masterpiece

Neil Finn’s latest solo album, Out of Silence, offers us the gift of catharsis in a season of unpredictable politics and societal division. This month, the Crowded House singer has returned with ten songs…

Hard Work Pays Off Says Dancer Lance Savali

Hard Work Pays Off Says Dancer Lance Savali

Lance Savali is currently working with music artist Chris Brown on the hip hop star’s Party Tour while travelling the world teaching workshops and brushing shoulders with superstars which have included Jennifer Lopez, Brandy…

Author Lynley Dodd on the Secret Lives of Pets

Author Lynley Dodd on the Secret Lives of Pets

On the release of her new picture book, Scarface Claw, Hold Tight! acclaimed New Zealand writer and illustrator Lynley Dodd talks animal antics and her favourite children’s books. Many cat owners would be familiar with…

Local Millennial Artists Confront Stigma

Local Millennial Artists Confront Stigma

Are millennials equally lost and lamentable the world over? A recent trio of forward-looking exhibitions in New Zealand, including New Perspectives, suggests that youth remains a truly international – and consistently problematic – art-world…

KJ Apa Chats About Archie’s Second Season

KJ Apa Chats About Archie’s Second Season

Right now, only a handful of people know what happens after the big cliffhanger from Riverdale’s season one finale: whether or not Fred Andrews, who was shot in Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe, has survived. But…

New Zealand Contingent Screenwriting Pioneers

New Zealand Contingent Screenwriting Pioneers

“To make a good film,” Alfred Hitchcock once said, “you need three things: the script, the script, and the script.” Yet while it’s easy to find (and argue over) lists of the greatest films…

Aldous Harding Talks about Creative Processes

Aldous Harding Talks about Creative Processes

“I called singer-songwriter Aldous Harding in the early evening hours from a computer telephone in the projection booth of a theatre in New York City. She picked up a hemisphere away in New Zealand…

Japan’s Landscapes Inspire Photographer Damon Bay

Japan’s Landscapes Inspire Photographer Damon Bay

New Zealand photographer Damon Bay is shining an outsider’s eye on Japan’s countryside. He’s reimagining an ancient art form to showcase the beauty in everyday landscapes, according to Hiroyuki Tanaka, a journalist for Japanese…

Rising Star Vinnie Bennett Hits Toronto

Rising Star Vinnie Bennett Hits Toronto

New Zealander Vinnie Bennett, 25, who stars in Nic Gorman’s Human Traces, was one of seven actors selected to participate in this year’s Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF’s) Rising Stars programme. For four days during…

Alien Weaponry Sign with Berlin Label

Alien Weaponry Sign with Berlin Label

Thrash metal band Alien Weaponry, a group of three teenagers from Northland’s Waipu, has signed a management contract with Berlin label Das Machine. The band has also just won the coveted APRA Maioha Award…

Pianist Jason Bae Performs Classics in Vietnam

Pianist Jason Bae Performs Classics in Vietnam

New Zealand pianist Jason Bae, 26, recently performed a classical concert in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, playing compositions by Chopin, Ravel and Rachmaninoff. Bae began studying piano when he was five, and had his…

Toronto Film Fest Review of Human Traces

Toronto Film Fest Review of Human Traces

“A sub-Antarctic research station is the setting for Human Traces, a twisty psychological thriller from promising New Zealand director Nic Gorman,” Richard Kuipers writes in a review for Variety. “Isolation is anything but splendid in…

Topp Twins – As Kiwi As Buzzy Bee

Topp Twins – As Kiwi As Buzzy Bee

New Zealand’s Topp Twins are bringing their show Heading for the Hills to the Gisborne War Memorial Theatre on October 13. “They love New Zealand’s provincial towns so the yodelling…

NZ-UK Co-Production 6 Days to Screen on Netflix

NZ-UK Co-Production 6 Days to Screen on Netflix

The heroism of SAS soldier, Scotland-born John McAleese is being brought to the small screen in a joint £20 million UK-New Zealand co-production called 6 Days, which screens on Netflix on 3 November. The…

Lynley Dodd’s Scarface Set Loose Again

Lynley Dodd’s Scarface Set Loose Again

New Zealand’s favourite scrappy cat returns, taking the ride of his life in author Lynley Dodd’s latest adventure, Scarface Claw, Hold Tight. Dodd is bringing the book to Perth’s Awesome Festival along with a free…

Waru “An Authentic, Multi-Voiced Story”

Waru “An Authentic, Multi-Voiced Story”

“A fascinating glimpse into New Zealand’s contemporary Maori community, Waru brings a sense of dramatic, urgent realism to a story that plays out like a suspenseful mystery,” writes Deborah Young in an article for…

Chantelle Gerrard Dresses to Kill at Pop-Up Globe

Chantelle Gerrard Dresses to Kill at Pop-Up Globe

If there were a holy grail for costume designers today, it would have to be working on Game of Thrones, according to Kerrie O’Brien writing for the Sydney Morning Herald. New Zealander Chantelle Gerrard,…

Lorde Notches up Another Vogue Australia Cover

Lorde Notches up Another Vogue Australia Cover

As global superstar Lorde prepares for the Antipodean leg of her Melodrama World Tour, the 20-year-old Vogue Australia cover girl chats to Alice Birrell about exiting her teenage years, coping with soaring success and the…

Jane Campion’s Real Life Motherhood Plot

Jane Campion’s Real Life Motherhood Plot

Amidst Top of the Lake: China Girl’s central thematic story lines related to motherhood – Mary’s relationship with Julia grows tense as she gets to know Robin – there was a real-life motherhood “plot”…

Q and A With Opera Singer Kiri Te Kanawa

Q and A With Opera Singer Kiri Te Kanawa

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who was presented with the 2017 Gramophone Awards Lifetime Achievement Award last week in London, and who has just announced her retirement from public performance, sat down with the Financial…

Intergalactic Gary a Visionary Selector

Intergalactic Gary a Visionary Selector

“Since the early 1980s, John Scheffer has established himself not only as an esteemed selector and master of his craft, but as an artist who has dedicated his life to weaving music…

Napalm Records Signs Speed Metal Band Stalker

Napalm Records Signs Speed Metal Band Stalker

“Fearless” Wellington three-piece Stalker, who have just signed to Austrian label Napalm Records, are set to release “a most sinister monster of an album” – Shadow Of The Sword – on 17 November, according…

NZ Acting Coach Miranda Harcourt Gets Emmy Shout Out From Nicole Kidman

NZ Acting Coach Miranda Harcourt Gets Emmy Shout Out From Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman has thanked Wellington acting coach Miranda Harcourt in her heartfelt acceptance speech after winning an Emmy for her role on the TV series Big Little Lies, as reported…

Jane Campion on Her Ovarian Series

Jane Campion on Her Ovarian Series

The legality of prostitution and commercial surrogacy, the exploitation of women involved in both – in the end, Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake: China Girl explored those issues more than it explored the…

Kiri Te Kanawa Sings Her Last Public Note

Kiri Te Kanawa Sings Her Last Public Note

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, one of opera’s most celebrated stars, has told the BBC she will never sing in public again. Te Kanawa, 73, said she stopped performing a year ago, but had not…

Sam Neill Nominated for Another Emmy

Sam Neill Nominated for Another Emmy

A few days out from the Emmy Awards, where Sam Neill, 70, has been nominated in the outstanding narrator category for his work on documentary series Wild New Zealand, the actor showed he was…

UFO Home for Sale in Warrington

UFO Home for Sale in Warrington

A rare spaceship-shaped home located in Warrington and designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968, is for sale, attracting international interest as sci-fi and architecture nerds scramble to secure a UFO abode by…

Colenso BBDO Win Gold for DB Export Beer Bottle Sand Campaign

Colenso BBDO Win Gold for DB Export Beer Bottle Sand Campaign

Colenso BBDO have won Gold in Adweek’s Project Isaac Awards for their Beer Bottle Sand campaign for DB Export. The award was won in the Event/Experience…

Jordan Rakei’s New Album Gets Paste Excited

Jordan Rakei’s New Album Gets Paste Excited

There’s so much good music slated to come out in September, according to Paste magazine, who list their top 15 artists, including New Zealander Jordan Rakei. Rakei’s new album Wallflower is out on 22 September. “As…

Kimberley Crossman To Star in Showtime’s ‘SMILF’

Kimberley Crossman To Star in Showtime’s ‘SMILF’

“The upcoming Showtime comedy series SMILF has cast New Zealand-born actress Kimberley Crossman in a recurring role,” reports Joe Otterson for Variety. Crossman will play Kit-Cat, the roommate of…

Legendary Reggae Stars Katchafire Play Sydney

Legendary Reggae Stars Katchafire Play Sydney

They’re the band who have stamped themselves as pioneers of the reggae movement in New Zealand. And now Katchafire is set to show northern beaches music lovers what they’ve been missing out on when…

Lindauer Portraits on Show in San Francisco

Lindauer Portraits on Show in San Francisco

Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki, is touring 31 portraits of Maori by the famed artist Gottfried Lindauer, which will be on display at San Francisco’s de Young Fine Arts Museum through to April…

Callan Mulvey Joins Outlaw King Cast

Callan Mulvey Joins Outlaw King Cast

Auckland-born actor Callan Mulvey, 42, is joining the cast of upcoming American-Scottish historical action drama Outlaw King, which will be aired on Netflix. According to Variety, Mulvey will be playing the role of Sir John…

Photographer Gavin O’Neill Shoots for the Stars

Photographer Gavin O’Neill Shoots for the Stars

Earlier this year, 46-year-old Gavin O’Neill, who left New Zealand in 1996 to pursue fashion photography, received an email from the personal assistant of Kim Kardashian West. She had found his work on Instagram, the…

Neil Finn’s New Solo LP Contemplative and Tender

Neil Finn’s New Solo LP Contemplative and Tender

Neil Finn, the multi-talented Crowded House frontman, can make the most sophisticated pop music sound like the easiest thing in the world, according to freelance journalist Andrew Stafford, who reviews Finn’s fourth solo album,…

Pioneering Composer Annea Lockwood’s Common Ground

Pioneering Composer Annea Lockwood’s Common Ground

“New Zealand-born Annea Lockwood and the Brazilian Jocy de Oliveira are two composers separated by a distance that is geographical only,” Louise Gray writes for British music magazine The Wire. Their reissues, Lockwood’s Tiger…

Stefania LaVie Owen Cast in Dick Cheney Biopic Casts

Stefania LaVie Owen Cast in Dick Cheney Biopic Casts

Kiwi actress “Stefania LaVie Owen has joined Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Amy Adams, and Bill Pullman in Annapura’s Dick Cheney biopic, titled Backseat, written and directed by Adam McKay,” as reported on

Jamie McClennan Performs in Edinburgh

Jamie McClennan Performs in Edinburgh

New Zealand-born Jamie McClennan and Scottish folksinger Emily Smith celebrate 15 years of making music together in 2017. The pair will be appearing at the Edinburgh Folk Club, Pleasance Cabaret Bar on 20 September. “Their…

How Rugby Helped Jared James In Japan

How Rugby Helped Jared James In Japan

For a Japanese national, the question of why a person from the West would come to Japan is a fascinating one, so much so that there’s even a TV show about it: You wa…