On this page

 

DOCNZ E-Newsletter

#23 - March 2009

Kia Ora. We are already a few days into DOCNZ 2009 in Auckland and Rialto Newmarket is packed with doco lovers. The festival will run till Sunday the 8th of March. In this e-newsletter you will find the latest information about DOCNZ.

The DOCNZ Team

In this issue

  1. DOCNZ Festival – Competition winners and what still lies ahead
  2. DOCNZ Summit – Looking back at a successful industry event
  3. DOCNZ Survey – The survey is closed and we have a winner, or two

1. DOCNZ Festival – Great films for everyone

The DOCNZ ‘Docs Rock’ international documentary film festival is underway in Auckland and going full-steam ahead. The festival kicked off with Awards Night hosted at Hopetoun Alpha Wednesday last week and opened on Thursday with Beatles-Cirque du Soleil documentary All Together Now in the opening night slot. Since then we have seen amazing local and international documentaries being screened at Rialto Newmarket, but there is much still to come. And when the Festival concludes in Auckland on 8 March it will travel to Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
The Awards Night was all about selecting the best documentaries of the Festival. They were honoured together with our thanks to the various contributors to the festival and the distinguished guests – among which was Minister for Broadcasting Dr. Jonathan Coleman who promised support to the documentary industry on behalf of the government.
The following documentaries were awarded in the various categories.

International Competition: Short Documentary
Don Roberto’s Shadow, Juan Diego Spoerer

International Competition: Feature Documentary
At the Death House Door, Steve James and Peter Gilbert

New Zealand Competition: Short Documentary
An Ordinary Person, Susan Potter

New Zealand Competition: Feature Documentary
Shustak, Stuart Page

Best Emerging New Zealand Filmmaker
Stuart Page, Shustak

Screenrights Best Educational Documentary
The Last Western Heretic, Monique Oomen

 

Best Editor
François Verster, Sea Point Days

Best Cinematographer
John Collins and Ian Kerr, The Wild Horse Redemption

Best Director
Heddy Honigmann, Oblivion

It is still possible to see many of the awarded films during the Festival, or other great films such as Operation Filmmaker, Constantine’s Sword, The Real Shaolin, Another Planet and All White in Barking to name but a few.

But don’t wait too long as the festival ends on Sunday 8 March. Afterwards, the Festival travels to Wellington (Regent on Mannes) from 12 to 22 March and then Christchurch (Regent on Worcester) and Dunedin (The Octagon) both from 26 March to 5 April. To those south of the Bombay Hills, we can promise it will be well worth the wait.

2. DOCNZ Summit – Looking back at a successful industry event

The Awards Night was also the conclusion of DOCNZ Summit, our documentary industry event. We would like to thank all participants and volunteers for their contributions to making the event a great success. Many were the highlights among the panel sessions and the Pitching Forum was characterised by the high level of the pitches.

The Pitching Forum was a great success. Although all eight participating projects were treated by the judges in roughly equal measures as potentially successful documentaries, Dan Salmon and his project Pictures of Susan was awarded NZD 1500 for the best pitch.

The recently announced DOCNZ Goethe-Institut Scholarship was awarded to Julie Hill for her proposed project Winds of Change. Julie will travel to Germany to experience German cultures and documentary industry and work on her documentary project.

ScreenHub, our media partner, and the industry online journal based in Australia, covered our Summit. We attach url links to their reports of the various sessions

DOCNZ: pitching comp and other award winners

DOCNZ: The minister, the broadcasters, and the bloodbath

DOCNZ: How to get people to Say What You Want...

Life Unscripted: A Day In The Life of Doc NZ

DOCNZ: changing the world with documentary

DOCNZ: How To Reach An Audience


3. DOCNZ Survey – The survey is closed and we have a winner, or two

Our short survey announced in the previous newsletter is now closed. We like to thank all those who took the time to complete it. By ballot, we have picked two complimentary DOCNZ Festival tickets go to Coral Diesel and two DOCNZ Focus tickets go to Philippa Brothers. Please enjoy the films.


Newsletter Subscription

To subscribe to the Documentary Edge E-Newsletter, please fill out our subscription form.

If you wish to be removed from the mailing list, please send an email to newsletter@documentaryedge.org.nz and use ‘Remove’ as the subject heading.

Documentary Edge Social Networks

Page top