Intimacy and success
New Zealander Kerry Fox wins Silver Bear (best actress) at the Berlin Film Festival for her “searing and explicit” performance in Intimacy, winner of the Golden Bear for best film. Fox was unable to…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Sydders Running
The Sydney Half-Marathon turns ten. Back in 1996, New Zealand woman Nyla Carroll won the women’s section so fast the official nearly missed her dash over the finish line.
Hollywood outgrows itself
Gladiator, filmed in Morocco, Malta and the UK, directed by a Brit, scored by a German and “sexed up by the hottest New Zealander on the planet” is a new breed of block-buster, a…
Making Waves
“Where once New Zealand seemed bent on shrinking the public sector to anorexic proportions, it is now pumping it full of new blood. New Zealand has a long record of setting global trends. It was first…
Down Right Funny
“I’m sure New Zealand has its own sense of humour. I know so, because I once wrote a preview of the rugby world cup for a satirical magazine here, a piece which represented what I hoped…
No talk, just sex
Intimacy is a smouldering film about a man who is living in a basement in south London who has a sex affair with a woman at his place every Wednesday afternoon. They don’t talk,…
US Feels the Edge
The US needs a fillip if it is to maintain inventiveness and compete with up-and-coming centres of innovation like New Zealand.
Snow Queen
New Zealand snowboard star Juliane Bray crowned world champ at Japan’s World Cup Snowboard.
Capital Style
“Deregulation and the cosmopolitan tastes of a new generation of globe trotting Kiwis have transformed Wellington from a gray town for civil servants into a cultural haven with a thriving cafe scene, a budding movie industry, a…
Big, Bad Bird
“A San Francisco Zoo employee was injured yesterday when a 5-foot tall bird native to New Zealand tore into his leg with its powerful claws … The animals are found in the rain forests of New…
Face the Message
New Zealand tech-designers LifeFX’s Facemail programme spreads the word about a deal with major photo company Kodak.
Milk magic
Director Harry Sinclair explains the magic behind The Price of Milk: “We put a window frame on a dolly and sat Danielle Coramck and the camera on the dolly. And they were moving along Karl…
Into the Black
New Zealand leads the pack in debt reduction, cutting government debt from 65% of GDP in 1993 to 31% in 1999.
Star of the year
Russell Crowe named “Male Star of the Year” at ShoWest 2001, the largest motion picture industry convention.
Nick Heir to Jack, Peter, John
Hutt Valley high school miler Nick Willis has become the fastest miler in New Zealand history, beating the times of Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell and John Walker at the famous Wanganui Cook Gardens.
Sooty Mania
New Zealanders respect a real man – or a real guinea pig. Sooty, the rodent famous for fathering 43 babies in one sweaty night, received a large volume of Valentines postmarked New Zealand. “He has…
Mad world of Milk
“In the real world, Lucinda probably would be in court-ordered psychotherapy, with a restraining order or two thrown in to boot. In the fanciful world of The Price of Milk, however, Cormack’s Lucinda is…
Bird DNA
“The first ever functional genome sequences from an extinct species have been mapped by scientists at Oxford University. The mitochondrial DNA sequences were obtained from two giant moa and a Madagascan elephant-bird.”
Old Birds
Entering into the debate over cloning, Dr. Alan Cooper of Oxford comments that, despite the moa-mapping efforts of his team, “it is crucial that we do not become complacent and start assuming that we will be…
Go Russell, go!
“What we do in life/echoes in eternity.” Russell “Maximus” Crowe gets a second Best Actor nomination (last year was for The Insider), continuing a fine run of Wellington actors and filmmakers who have been…
Nice snap
Kiwi AP photojournalist Greg Baker snapped third place in the World Press Photo of the Year Sports stories category for a series taken at a Chinese sports’ school.
Seats of Power
New Zealand backpackers unwittingly helped end apartheid, acting as bus-filling decoys for safari-organising gun-runners.
Which Way do I Jump?
Queenstown – the capital of adventure, or, as this ambivalent adventurer puts it, “dumb stuff”.
How to remember the holocaust?
As conceptual architect of the “extraordinarily popular Museum of New Zealand Te Papa” Ken Gorbey has earned a reputation as a world leader in museum innovation – head hunted to be project director of…
Foot Gloves
More than 50% of mass-market shoes just aren’t made to go on feet, but a small New Zealand company is an oasis of comfort among the pinching, making shoes that “fit like a glove”.
Wild Scent
Three New Zealand men kayaking across Antarctica have been chased by a leopard seal, run into a humpback whale and they’re starting to smell like penguins.
Thar’ She Blows!
New Zealand representatives at the International Whaling Commission are keeping up the pressure for a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary.
Lost in Te Anau
New Zealand-filmed BBC production of sci-fi dino classic The Lost World set to be “a ripping yarn with some of the most exotic locations we’ve seen in television drama”.
Actually Into It
New Zealand company Deep Video Imaging teams with Philips to incorporate actualdepth(TM) technology in next generation Philips monitors, creating “a new information display paradigm”.
Former Gov-Gen Dies
Sir David Beattie, former Governor-General and Supreme Court Judge, died suddenly in his home, aged 76.
Refresher Course
“New Zealand celebrates its National Day today. Situated in the South Pacific Ocean southeast of Australia, it is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It has an area of 27,534 square kilometers. Its…
Johnny Appleseedless
Scientists at the New Zealand Horticulture and Food Research Institute have pin-pointed the gene that creates seedless apples. They hope to develop a commercial variety using the gene to switch off seed production.
Defending Champ
Michael Campbell came from behind to retain his title at the 2001 Heineken Classic in Perth.
Headmaster Steps Down
New Zealander John Lewis, the first non-British headmaster at Eton and the man who shielded Wills from the press, will resign in 18 months, at the age of 60.
Spy on Top
Of the bestseller lists that is. New Zealander Richard Tomlinson’s account of his time with MI6, The Big Breach, proves popular despite legal wrangling over publishing and copyright.
Kiwi Leads Brits
“Most of Kiwi Andrew Longmore’s working life has been devoted to the pursuit of sailing’s Holy Grail. No one has helmed more miles in an America’s Cup boat than Barnes, in racing, testing and development over…
Wonderboy
New Zealand apprentice jockey Michael Walker 16 years old, 18 months riding, 224 winners, 100 this half-season. Phenomenal.
Leader Saluted
“They don’t make people like Bob Mahuta very often,” said former treaty negotiations minister Sir Douglas Graham, paying tribute to the Tainui leader who died early this month.
LifeFX
Auckland University’s digital-face email-reading technology attracts interest after the institute invested in the Boston-based firm that’s commercialising the product.
Hunter is home from the (Beverly) hills
Rachel Hunter features in a movie about a furry antipodean who gets lost and ends up in LA…
In the can
“I can shut my eyes and imagine the movie playing in my head,” says Peter Jackson, spilling the exhaustion and elation of moving from filming to post-production.
Aim Off
Twenty years ago, Greg Chappell instructed his brother Trevor to deliver the ball underarm. It was all about sending a message to the Australian Cricket hierarchy …
Philosophical Spilt
“Western philosophy starts with a conflict between reason and faith. But there is no such dichotomy in Indian philosophy where dharma is a part of philosophy. Everything is substantiated by reason,” says Victoria University Philosophy Professor Jaysankar L….
Touch of Class
German band ATC’s Around the World (La La La La La) is big in Germany, but hasn’t hit New Zealand yet, home of singer “Joe”.
Sauvignon Summer
“Stick with sauvignon blanc. The good ones are so much better, for the price (Cloudy Bay, perhaps the best in the world–certainly the most striking–goes for less than a so-so California chardonnay), than other summer staples that…
Dalton Speaks
“Home, however briefly, is beckoning. We should be through the Cook Strait, which separates the North and South Islands of my home country, New Zealand, in four days and that means we will, as far as I…
Brooke on Board
Former AB Zinzan Brooke shucks his rugby jersey and climbs aboard the Team Veritas yacht for a leg of the BT Global Challenge.
Unforgettable
Skiing the South Island of New Zealand is an “unforgettable” experience – a “a must see for every true adventurer”.
Alas, No Elias
It’s time Britain had a female judge a la New Zealand Chief Justice Sian Elias, the conspicuous lone woman on the Privy Council.
