DOCNZ: Documentary New Zealand Trust
Please Vote for Me and Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story were the big winners at last night’s DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival Awards picking up two awards each. International and local documentary filmmakers competed for over $33,000 worth of prizes in Australasia’s largest documentary film festival and competition.
Amidst the celebrations, DOCNZ co-director Ewa Bigio reflected on a more serious note by asking funding bodies to look more closely into the current documentary funding infra structure, the role of the documentary filmmaker here in New Zealand and the high level of frustration that local documentary filmmakers are experiencing with the funding process. Co-director Alex Lee in thanking the film-makers, partners and volunteers in bringing DOCNZ, challenged the government bodies and funding agencies to accord arts and cultural organisations with more respect by not expecting organisations like DOCNZ to rely on the goodwill and meagre resources to sustain a world class professional arts and cultural organisation.
New Zealander Julian Shaw’s account of South African political satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys picked up the St. Laurence Best NZ Medium award and scooped the DOCNZ Best Emerging Filmmaker award, with judges praising the content matter Shaw brought to screens with his documentary. ‘It’s a well made, beautifully realised production from a young, emerging filmmaker whose next works we look forward to seeing in the years to come’ one judge noted.
Weijun Chen’s Please Vote for Me, a classic election nail-biter set in a third grade classroom in China, picked up the ‘International Competition Medium Feature’ award and the Screenrights Best Educational Film. The medium feature category was a hotly contested prize, however, with judges indicating the high calibre of films made it a difficult choice to make. My Daughter the Terrorist received a ‘Special Mention’, the highest commendation possible.
Other award winners included the dysfunctional family values story Knee Deep, New Zealander Justin Pemberton’s topical The Nuclear Comeback, and budding filmmakers Zoe McIntosh and Janette Howe receiving the Best Pitch and Carole Dean Grant awards respectively.
Winner: In the Night Kitchen
Winner: Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story
Winner: The Nuclear Comeback
Winner: Please Vote for Me
Julian Shaw for Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story
Auckland Sept 27—Oct 10, Dunedin Oct 11—21, Christchurch Oct 25—Nov 4, and Wellington Nov 8—21.
For more info on the movies, cinemas and screening times visit www.docnz.org.nz.
Media enquiries
Contact publicist Michelle Lafferty:
elephantpublicity@paradise.net.nz, +64 368 4180.