DEGANZ Members are ImagineNATIVE

Seven DEGANZ members’ mahi is being showcased in this year’s programme of imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the world’s largest exhibition for film, video, audio, and digital, and interactive media made by Indigenous creators.

Starting in 2000, this year marks imagineNATIVE’s 25th run with 55 Indigenous nations from 16 countries included in the line up. The theme this year is seed keeping and the passing down of seeds to the next generation. The festival reflects on the theme saying,

Like ancestors planting their seeds to grow and harvest sustenance for the people, we look back on 25 years of Indigenous artists breaking barriers, opening doors for each other, connecting, collaborating, and inspiring fearlessness in storytelling for future generations.

imagineNATIVE will run 3-8 June in Toronto and 9-25 June online. Congratulations to all those selected!

Features

Kōka

Editor: Te Rurehe Paki

Worlds collide when Māori Elder Hamo accidentally hits Jo, a rough-around-the-edges wahine, with her car. Feeling responsible for her care, Hamo tries to help Jo back on her feet, only to find herself entangled in Jo’s antics after Jo lost her only home and family — a group of misfits who outlived their stay in an encampment. Hamo reluctantly agrees to take Jo under her wing, bringing her along on the trip back home. While on the road, the women form an unlikely bond that leads them to face the past and lean on each other on the path to healing.

The Haka Part Incident

Writer, Director & Producer: Katie Wolfe

This impressively candid documentary revisits the three-minute-long “incident” at the University of Auckland, which triggered race relations between Māori and non-Māori in 1970s New Zealand. Current Interviews with the engineering students who participated in the mocking haka party and members of the activist group that disrupted it, now adults, reflect on their versions of what happened. Directed by Katie Wolfe (one of the directors of 2017’s Waru) this doc, originally a theatre piece, is the ultimate telling of this true story. With archival footage and insights from those who were there, The Haka Party Incident brings forgotten history to life.

Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End

Editors: Te Rurehe Paki & Martin Brinkler

Writer: Tim Worrall

It’s 1864 and against impossible odds, the Māori in the Waikato region valiantly face an army of colonial settlers to fight for their lands and people. Haki is a half-Māori and half-European teenager fighting on the side of the New Zealand military and taken prisoner by the Māori resistance. He befriends Kopu, a Māori girl who is imprisoned in her own right as she is believed to be the vessel for manifesting a Māori god of war, used for guidance as a resistance tactic in her people’s battle for sovereignty. Haki and Kopu find themselves caught between many concurrent battles of identity politics, physical and spiritual warfare, and friends and enemies, as they both discover there is no escape without a fight.

Short Film Programme: Knee Slappers

Honey Kaha

Writer, Director & Co-Editor: Te Waiarangi Ratana

The low-budget adventures of streetwise fisheries officer Honey Kaha are brought to life by star Dr. Julia Love and her dastardly former husband, Kent Barry.

Chatterbox

Editor: Amarbir Singh

A woman struggles with her relationship with her body. It’s not that she hates it, she just wishes her vagina would stop calling her a bitch.

Short Film Programme: Elder Stories

Rapido

Co-Writer, Director & Co-Editor: Richard J Curtis 

A young Māori boy’s fascination with war comics comes closer to home than he could ever imagine.

 

Last updated on 15 May 2025

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‘The Sender’: A Digital Blackmail Whodunnit For The Social Media Age

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The Sender, directed by Liv McClymont (DEGANZ) and edited by fellow member Ben Chesters, is out now on Instagram and TikTok.

The NZ On Air funded web series was created by Liv and producer Jessica Todd to meet young audiences where they are. Shot in a vertical aspect ratio and edited to suit the short form platforms, the series is not only made for social media, it is all about social media.

When six school prefects sneak away to a remote bach for a night of underage drinking and questionable decisions, they expect a chill evening—not total social annihilation. At 10 P.M. their phones light up with messages from @thesender, an anonymous account sending scandalous photos that could destroy their carefully crafted lives.

While filled with classic teen drama hijinks, The Sender also tackles the serious topics of image-based abuse and sextortion. It approaches this serious subject matter with humour and authenticity, making the difficult conversation more accessible to younger audiences.

The first five episodes are out now, with new episodes dropping four times a week.

Congrats to Liv, Ben, and the entire The Sender team!

 

Last updated on 28 May 2025

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DEGANZ Members Feature at Sydney Film Festival

Three feature films from DEGANZ members have been selected for this year’s Sydney Film Festival (SFF). SFF is celebrating its 72nd year with more than 240 films from 70 countries in the programme. The selected films cover themes of resistance, rebellion, identity, climate change, and cultural struggle.

The highly anticipated Pike River, directed by Robert Sarkies (DEGANZ) and edited by Peter Roberts (DEGANZ), is celebrating its world premiere in the Special Presentation strand. This is SFF’s big night out at the renowned State Theatre featuring films with big stars, special guests, and red carpet events.

Documentaries Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, edited by Josh Yong (DEGANZ), and The Haka Party Incident, directed by Katie Wolfe (DEGANZ), are screening in the First Nations Awards strand. The programme is the world’s largest cash prize in global Indigenous filmmaking. The selected films are full of rich images, ideas, and perspectives from Indigenous storytellings from Canada, Aotearoa, Indonesia, Norway, and Australia.

Congratulations to Katie, Josh, Robert, and Peter on the prestigious selection!

Pike River

Director: Robert Sarkies

Editor: Peter Roberts

The powerful true story of Anna Osborne (Melanie Lynskey) and Sonya Rockhouse (Robyn Malcolm), and their fight for justice following New Zealand’s deadliest modern mining disaster.

In 2010, a massive explosion trapped 29 men inside the Pike River coal mine in the remote West Coast of New Zealand. This deeply moving film portrays the friendship that grew between Anna, who lost her husband Milt, and Sonya, who lost her youngest son, Ben. Drawing strength from the other, they rebuild their shattered lives and gradually discover the scale of the betrayal they’ve endured. Together they find the courage to fight back against the mining bosses, the judiciary and the government. Their joint efforts shake the nation. Capturing their heroism with great sensitivity, Pike River is an inspiring account of the power of friendship.

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds

Editor: Josh Yong

Follow the charming Aotearoa New Zealand singer-songwriter on a life-changing journey of self-exploration as he embraces his roots and creates his first album in te reo Māori.

Beloved for his alt-bluegrass stylings, Christchurch-born Marlon Williams has spent years on the road, touring with the likes of Florence + The Machine and Bruce Springsteen, and even making a fan of Bradley Cooper, who handpicked the musician to appear in A Star Is Born. This sensitive documentary finds Williams at a crossroads: he returns home to reconnect with his Ngai Tahu and Ngai Tai roots, and to write an album entirely in te reo Maori – calling upon his friend Lorde to contribute. Director Ursula Grace Williams crafts a loving portrait of an artist at his peak. Set against stunning Aotearoa New Zealand landscapes, her film celebrates the creativity that flows from exploring one’s own heritage and identity.

The Haka Party Incident

Writer, Director & Producer: Katie Wolfe

A three-minute protest staged in 1979 echoes across the decades as a potent indictment of systemic racism and a lens through which to re-examine Aotearoa’s national identity.

On May 1, 1979, the Maori and Pasifika activist group He Taua confronted University of Auckland engineering students over their annual “haka party”– a racist and drunken mock haka – in what became a pivotal moment in Aotearoa’s race relations. Katie Wolfe’s stirring documentary revisits the event through archival footage and unfiltered contemporary interviews. Adapted from the director’s acclaimed play, the film is suffused with tension, legacy, and painful introspection. With powerful juxtapositions of the past and the present, it interrogates what has changed and what hasn’t – and what remembrance really means. A vital documentary that reclaims forgotten history and honours those who stood up, and changed a nation.

 

Last updated on 15 May 2025

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Time for a Movie Night! Watch ‘Red, White & Brass’ On Netflix Now

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If you missed catching local comedy Red, White & Brass in cinemas, you can now stream in on Netflix instead! DEGANZ board president Ben Powdrell was one of the editors on the film.

Inspired by a true story, a Tongan rugby superfan hatches a plan to score World Cup tickets by forming a ragtag brass band to perform before the match. The only problem is they have no band, no instruments…and no idea.

The film has had a very successful festival run showing in 12 festival across the globe and winning the Special Jury Mention Narrative Feature at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival in 2023 and winning Best Feature at the Pacific Island Film Festival New York City in 2024.

Watch Red, White & Brass on Netflix now.

 

Last updated on 28 May 2025

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How a Professional Website Can Help Your Film Career

It can be useful for freelance filmmakers to have a professional online space for their work. DEGANZ’s Events and Membership Coordinator, Izzi Hoskyn, sat down with Tema Pua of Tempixel Design to chat about how having a website can help freelance filmmakers’ careers.

Tempixel Design is offering to make web design more accessible for DEGANZ members with exclusive discount codes. DEGANZ members can now get 20% off Tempixel’s website templates and 10% off the Superpixel design days.

For more information on how to access these discounts, log in to your DEGANZ account and navigate to the Member Discounts page.

Izzi: Thank you, Tema, for taking the time to chat with me today.

Tema: My pleasure.

Izzi: Can you tell our DEGANZ membership a bit about yourself and your web design business, Tempixel?

Tema: I run a small business called Tempixel Design. I’m a Squarespace web designer specifically for filmmakers, theatre artists and performers because I am also a filmmaker myself. I direct short films, I script supervise, and some of the members may recognise me as someone who used to work at DEGANZ for 6 years before I left to dedicate more time to film. I also ended up starting this business in that time.

Tema Pua and Tempixel Design logo / Photos supplied

Izzi: Nice. Why would a TV and film practitioner benefit from a website if they can promote themselves and their work on social media?

Tema: I think when we’re talking about film and TV, the industry has run for a long time—and still does—based on relationships, networking and the people you know. I think that’s a great but challenging part of our industry. But I do feel that the internet is so integral to our lives and that it’s becoming more and more important for filmmakers to have a website to promote themselves.

Having a website is a space where you can be in control of what narrative you’re putting out, that’s free from a big company’s social media brand. You’re not having to change what you do based on an algorithm or a platform deciding that they prefer a 4:5 aspect ratio, for example.

I also think ‘How often do we like to Google people?’ I was looking for a cinematographer for my short film last, last year, and I started with a long list of DPs that had been recommended to me, or ones that I had heard of through the grapevine. So what did I do? I started to go through that list one by one, Googling them.

And that’s where I think having a website to promote yourself is key to raising awareness amongst people who might want to hire you or work with you on a project, versus someone who just has an Instagram.

Izzi: Yeah, it acts more as a professional landing page for anyone who’s looking you up online.

Tema: Yeah, essentially, you can use your website to communicate your professional identity. And that can be very close to who you are in real life—hopefully! Because I’m hoping we’re all trying to be authentic. But it can also be different—to show like ‘This is me as a professional, and this is the kind of work that I do and how I approach my work professionally.’

Websites by Tempixel Design

Another big benefit of a website is that it can help you define what you do. A website can be quite useful for—particularly in New Zealand, where we often wear many hats—clearing up any confusion around what you do. Whether you want to promote all of your jobs or just your directing portfolio, for example.

I think it is important to remember that a website is essentially a marketing tool. It’s just a different marketing tool to social media. And if you’re going to have a website, it’s going to be more beneficial if you think of it as a way to help you market yourself. Rather than: ‘Okay, I just stick my work up there.’

Izzi: And hope for the best.

Tema: Which often tends to be the case in screen. But you never know, having a website could give you the edge over someone else to get a job.

Izzi: We’ve talked a lot about the pros of a website. But how easy is it to build your own?

Tema: Today, now more than ever, it’s very easy to build a website because we’ve got website platforms that are easy to use, created for non-designers. I’ve chosen to work in Squarespace because I think it’s really easy to use and the learning curve isn’t steep. It’s quite easy to equip my clients to be able to use it. And I think that can be very empowering, because you may not want to keep paying a web designer or developer to update your website whenever you want to make a change, which used to be the case.

I did want to mention, though, that while it’s easy for people who don’t work in web design to create their own website, it’s good to be aware of basic web design conventions. For example, creating a website that’s easy to use and navigate is important.

Izzi: What then are some tips and tricks for designing your own website?

Tema: One area where filmmakers can improve their websites is to include one or more photos of yourself on your website.

Remember that we are a relationship-based industry. So, personal connection is important. Allowing someone to see another human being’s face is a really quick way for our brains to be like, ‘Oh, okay, I could possibly connect with this person.’

I also think what’s really helpful is explicitly telling people what kinds of projects you’re interested in working on. Because it can already be a guessing game. When you haven’t met that person, it can be hard to know what they want to be working on just from images and videos from their portfolio.

Examples of non-faceless websites by Tempixel Design

Izzi: Shall we finish with how Tempixel Design can help DEGANZ members with starting their website journey?

Tema: If you’re building your own website, I write a blog where I share tutorials, tips and guides specifically around Squarespace for screen and theatre practitioners. So feel free to check that out.

I’ll be providing a discount for DEGANZ members on all of my website templates for Squarespace. A premium template can help you get a leg up if you’re not sure where to start or you don’t feel you have sufficient design skills.

Members can also get a special discount on my Superpixel design days if you would rather leave your website with an expert and have your to-do list done for you. And tasks can be anything that you just can’t fix yourself or don’t have the time for, or maybe you want to refresh your website.

Izzi: Amazing! Thanks again for your time, Tema.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

 

Last updated on 1 May 2025

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