DOCNZ: Documentary New Zealand Trust
#10–Dec 2007
DOCNZ 2007 has ended and we would like to thank everyone who attended and supported this year’s festival.
We will advertise the dates for the next DOCNZ Film Festival in early January. This is the last E-Newsletter for 2007; we wish you all season greetings and a wonderful new year!
The DOCNZ Team
DOCNZ 2007 officially ended in Wellington on 22 November 2007. Over 10,000 people attended the 3rd edition of DOCNZ Film Festival in New Zealand. This is an increase of 40% compared with last year.
The most attended New Zealand documentary was Gaylene Preston’s Lovely RITAand the most attended international documentary was Leonardo Dicaprio’s The 11th Hour.
We trust that you enjoyed this year’s selection of the best local and international documentaries and thank you for making DOCNZ 2007 a success.
Five of the films screened in this year’s festival have just been short listed for the 80th Academy Awards, to be held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California in February 2008.
Nanking, Please Vote for Me, Operation Homecoming and The Rape of Europa have all been made the shortlist for the ‘Best Documentary’ category, while Freeheld has been shortlisted in the ‘Best Documentary Short’ category.
Jerusalem is Proud to Present won the ‘Movie That Matter Human Rights Award’ at International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA).
A Grandmother’s Tribe raised CA $50,000 for African grandmothers. “This is just the beginning of our global campaign to raise support for these grandmothers. This initial $50,000 raised will now go towards the building of eleven two-bedroom homes for grandmothers featured in the film, a fellowship for Felix Masi, the Kenyan photojournalist who, through his grass-roots organization, has been helping the grandmother-families of Funyula village and Kibera slum (in Nairobi) , Kenya.”, says co-Director/Executive Producer, Qiujing Wong.
The film held its World Premiere at DOCNZ 2007 and won a Special Mention in the Best Medium New Zealand category. In February 2008, the filmmakers will take the film back to the grandmothers in Kenya; and for the first time, they will see their story being told.
Abel Raises Cain is now available to purchase on DVD. If you're interested in checking out the film, please follow the link http://abelraisescain.com.
“Just Because the Film Ends, Doesn’t Mean Their Stories Do.’ This slogan from DOCNZ 2006 is so true when it comes to documentary films and unfortunately sometimes the story ends with a tragedy. It has been reported that the lead character Sally (Salvador Kamatoy) from the documentary Paper Dolls has been murdered in Dubai (see article in the Khaleej Times).
The news of Sally’s death reached director, Tomer Heymann, as he presented the film for the first time at the Philippines where Sally was originally from. Paper Dolls follows a group of Philippines’ foreign workers in Israel which worked as caregivers by day and drag performers by night.
DOCNZ Trust will announce the dates for the next DOCNZ Film Festival and Summit in early January. We will also post the new submission guidelines and an entry form.
In the meantime, we wish everyone happy holidays and all the best for the New Year!
The DOCNZ Team.
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