DOCNZ 2009 Film Festival Awards
DOCNZ is the only competitive documentary film festival in Australasia.
Each year, DOCNZ gives awards to the best national and international films in various categories. A total of 9 awards will be given at DOCNZ 2009 for best in the feature, short, educational film, editing, cinematography and directing in the national and international categories as well best pitch and best emerging film-maker.
International Competition: Short Documentary
Finalists
Winner
Don Roberto’s ShadowChile, Suecia Freed from captivity under Pinochet, Roberto returns to the prison to live in self-imposed exile.
International Competition: Feature Documentary
Finalists
Winner
At the Death House DoorUSA At the Death House Door is personal an intimate look at the death penalty in the state of Texas through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett.
Special Mention
New Zealand Competition: Short Documentary
Winner
An Ordinary PersonNew Zealand Taking as its starting point a cluster of killings in Auckland in 2003-4, An Ordinary Person unpacks the notorious ‘homosexual advance defence’ to murder.
New Zealand Competition: Feature Documentary
Winner
ShustakNew Zealand Why would a successful New York photographer travel to the edge of the earth, Christchurch, New Zealand? A tribute to photographer Laurence Shustak and his legacy.
Special Mention
Best Emerging New Zealand Filmmaker
Finalists
Winner
Stuart Page
- Shustak
New Zealand Why would a successful New York photographer travel to the edge of the earth, Christchurch, New Zealand? A tribute to photographer Laurence Shustak and his legacy.
Screenrights Best Educational Documentary
Winner
The Last Western HereticNew Zealand Radical theologian and NZ icon Lloyd Geering, once described by the BBC as "the last living heretic", has fearlessly challenged Christian doctrine for the last 50 years.
Best Editor
Finalists
Winner
François Verster
Sea Point DaysSouth Africa Sea Point Days is an unusual and impressionistic record of life at Cape Town’s Sea Point Promenade.
Best Cinematographer
Finalists
Winner
John Collins, Ian Kerr
The Wild Horse RedemptionCanada Uplifting and lyrical documentary about an innovative Colorado prison rehabilitation program that brings hardened criminals together with wild mustangs.
Best Director
Finalists
Winner
Heddy Honigmann
OblivionThe Netherlands/Germany Heddy Honigmann’s El Olvido (oblivion) tells us the stories of common people living in Lima, Peru, a country fraught with corruption and poverty.