DOCNZ: Documentary New Zealand Trust
#11–Jan 2008
After the holidays, breaks, BBQs, socialising and enjoying the best New Zealand summer in years (it ain’t over yet!), we are back working on the next edition of the DOCNZ Festival and Summit as well as new initiatives. Lots of news and some surprises in the first e-newsletter of the year, so lets get on to it!
We are shifting! The Next DOCNZ Summit and Festival will be held in early 2009.
With a busy arts calendar events in New Zealand towards the end of the year as well as our desire to coordinate and align the dates of various international festivals and events with DOCNZ, we have decided to move the summit and festival to commence in late February.
DOCNZ Summit will remain a 3-day event just before the opening of the film festival and the festival will continue to run in the 4 major centres in New Zealand.
We hope that you will all welcome the change and support what will become one of the early cultural events of the year.
Actual dates will be confirmed soon.
DOCNZ Film Festival 2009 is now open for submissions.
The new Rules & Regulations and an Entry Form are available to download.
As in the past, DOCNZ seeks fresh, cutting edge, new documentary films. We have a ‘premiere preferred’ policy. A minimum is a New Zealand premiere. The films can be of any length and deal with any subject matter.
The submission deadline for the DOCNZ Summit Pitching Forum will be announced at a later date.
While the DOCNZ Summit and Film Festival have been pushed forward to early 2009, we have exciting news for 2008—the DOCNZ Club will be launched in Auckland in May!
The DOCNZ Club will offer an annual programme of special curated top-notch documentaries which will screen every two months. The membership will include entries to all club screenings as well as discounts and benefits for the DOCNZ Summit and Film Festival.
More details on the DOCNZ Club will be announced soon and be included in the next newsletter.
The next Australia International Documentary Conference (AIDC) will be held 20-22 February in Perth! ‘AIDC 2008 will have a special focus on storytelling because telling stories is the core business of our industry. Western Australia, home of some of the oldest living storytelling traditions in the world, is the perfect location to look into the parameters of a good story,’ says Conference Director, Joost den Hartog.
The full programme of the conference was released on 14 January and as in the past, will deliver outstanding events for anyone interested in the world of documentaries.
Two New Zealand projects pitched at DOCNZ Summit 2007 will be pitched at AIDC Documart. Zoë McIntosh and Costa Botes received an automatic entry to pitch Lost in Wonderland thanks to Joost and with the support of the New Zealand Film Commission. Echo Di Zhu has also been chosen to pitch her project, Miss Tibet, there.
Also, Julia Parnell’s (Butobase) latest project, Children of Iraq: Life Amid Crisis, has been selected for the For Your Consideration section. Julia’s previous project, Relocating Mountains, was pitched at DOCNZ Summit and received funding from Maori Television, ITVS (USA) and NHK (Japan).
We encourage local filmmakers to make the visit across the Tasman to attend AIDC. Please let us know if you are going.
For more information, visit: www.aidc.com.au
Congratulations to DOCNZ 2007 films Operation Homecoming and Freeheld for making it to the final 5 nominees at the Academy Awards 2008. The 80th Oscars will be held in Los Angeles on 24 February.
Sand Dancer, (DOCNZ 2006) a short doco by Christchurch Director Valerie Reid, has just topped over 30 worldwide international film festival screenings making it one of New Zealand’s best loved docs of 2007. The film features iconic New Zealand sand artist, Peter Donnelly. The doco has just been invited for submission to New York’s Asbury Film festival in Manhattan, which screens only the best shorts from USA festivals. Well done Valerie!
To see Sand Dancer in full: http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/12719962.html
The French Film Festival is introducing a Short-Doc-Film Competition. Secondary school students, film school and tertiary students are invited to submit short documentary films with ‘a French flavour’. Prizes range from DVD and book collections to an all-expenses-paid film industry programme in France.
Entries close 31 March 2008, details are posted on the festival’s website www.frenchfilmfestival.co.nz.
The DOCNZ Team
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