Tansley’s ‘Tenor: My Name is Pati’ Coming to Cinemas in 2026

DEGANZ board member and award-winning filmmaker, Rebecca Tansley‘s latest feature documentary, Tenor: My Name is Pati, is coming to cinemas in March 2026.

The documentary charts the against-the-odds journey of Pene and Amitai, two of the world’s leading opera singers, from their original family home in Samoa and childhood in South Auckland through to the most revered opera stages in the world. Well-known to Kiwi audiences as part of the beloved trio Sol3 Mio, Pene and Amitai’s story is one of music, family, faith, and determination. Filmed across seven countries, the film takes audiences behind the curtain at some of the world’s greatest opera houses and captures rare, tender moments with the brothers and their family.

Bursting with humour, heart and soaring performances, the film reveals the resilience born of adversity, the richness of family and culture, and the rewards that come from following an unlikely dream.

Check the trailer out below and keep an eye out for screening announcements in the new year!

 

Last updated on 19 November 2025

/by

DEGANZ Watch List: Māori Stories on the Big and Small Screen

,

This week’s DEGANZ Watch List features Māori stories on both the big and small screen.

While local drama web series Ahikāroa is heating up with its seventh season, new docuseries, Earth Oven with Temuera Morrison, digs deep to explore how indigenous cultures from around the globe have used thermal cooking. Meanwhile, if you missed the chance to see Chelsea Winstanley’s directorial debut, TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty, at this year’s Whānau Mārama NZIFF, you can catch it in cinemas across the mōtu now.

Find out more about how DEGANZ members are involved below!

 

Ahikāroa

Bilingual Drama Web Series

Shadow Director: Te Waiarangi Ratana

Co-Editor: Jack Woon

Storyliners: Onehou Strickland and Te Waiarangi Ratana

Ahikāroa is back for its seventh season, picking up on all the drama from last season’s cliffhanger. Check out the latest episodes following the lives of urban-based rangatahi in Aotearoa.

 

Earth Oven with Temuera Morrison

Documentary Series

Editor: Ben Wildish

Director of Photography: Mike Jonathan

Temuera Morrison is hungry, and he’s using his favourite kai as a vehicle to head off on a globe-trotting adventure. Tem will visit indigenous communities from all around the world to uncover how earth ovens have shaped their cultures.

 

TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty

Documentary Feature

Editors: Cushla Dillon, Brendon Chan, and Huhana Ruri-Panapa

Director of Photography: Mike Jonathan

TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty, the debut directorial feature from Academy Award-nominated producer Chelsea Winstanley, goes behind the scenes of the largest Māori art exhibition in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. Following curator Nigel Borell’s vision for Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art, the film captures both its record-breaking success and the behind-the-scenes conflicts that arise when Indigenous sovereignty challenges institutional power. Featuring rare access and the voices of celebrated artists such as Shane Cotton, Emily Karaka, Taika Waititi, Brett Graham, Ngahina Hohaia, the Mataaho Collective and Reuben Paterson, this is a powerful portrait of cultural resilience and authorship.

TOITŪ: Visual Sovereignty is out in local cinemas now! Find a screening near you here.

 

Last updated on 26 November 2025

/by

People Have the Power

View from the Top banner

The Directors and Editors Guild of Aotearoa New Zealand is both a guild and a union. We’ve been a union since 2019. The NZ Writers Guild started out as a union in 1976 and Equity New Zealand came into existence as a union in 1944. We three are the unions in New Zealand’s screen sector, and are affiliated to the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU).

I attended my first NZCTU biennial conference last week. One of the biggest impressions left on me from the conference is that unions are bastions of democracy. We are large and small, democratic, membership-based organisations that foster active participation. We give workers a collective voice in public policy discussions, strengthening democracy at both the workplace and societal levels while striving for workers’ rights.

So much of my work at the guild, and my colleagues at the other guilds and associations, is taken up representing you to funding bodies, government ministers and ministries, other organisations, companies and individuals. We work to make your working world better.

Another lasting impression from the conference was the unity that all unions have in pursuing the best for their members, many of whom are in a less fortunate space than those of us in screen.

DEGANZ, NZWG and Equity NZ, joined by SIGANZ and SMSG, are united in their efforts to get collective bargaining underway under the Screen Industry Workers Act.

At our Collective Power Workshop last weekend, explaining what the Screen Industry Workers Act is all about, it was encouraging to see screen workers from a variety of disciplines in attendance. They were actively engaged in learning what SIWA can do for them and how it can help to bring our industry onto a truly professional footing, on par with developed nations elsewhere. Which is why it is so disappointing that we have disunity in our sector over SIWA. All at a time when so many voices are calling for us to be united to confront the challenges facing us in screen.

I encourage all of you to watch the Choir! Choir! Choir! rendition with Patti Smith of her song ‘People Have The Power’ on YouTube. These lyrics particularly resonate:

that the people have the power
to redeem the work of fools
upon the meek the graces shower
it’s decreed the people rule

For all of you who seek a more professional New Zealand screen industry that truly embraces collaboration, wellbeing and equity, it’s time, as Patti Smith so eloquently says at the end of the performance, to…

Use your voice!

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

Last updated on 6 November 2025

/by

Pike River’s Emotional and Rewarding Opening Week

,

Pike River, directed by Rob Sarkies (DEGANZ) and edited by fellow member Peter Roberts, has had a well-deserved, smashing opening week. Not only has the feature grossed half a million at the box office, but it has also touched the hearts of audiences and earned a stream of positive reviews.

Dame Gaylene Preston reviewed the film for RNZ, saying,

This is mature filmmaking in the hands of a committed director with experience and empathy. The mark of a good director is that everyone does their best work, in front and behind the camera. […] The domestic world of the families become somehow elevated, as the personal experiences of Sonya Rockhouse and Anna Osbourne become central and heroic.

Rob, along with writer Fiona Samuel and the women behind the story, Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse, have been travelling the motu for a series of screenings and Q&As. While celebrating the film and the creative team behind it, Rob maintains focus on Anna and Sonya’s ongoing story. As the film earns its fair share of applause and congratulations, the women receive it in equal parts, if not more, with teary-eyed standing ovations.

Congratulations to Rob, Peter, and the whole Pike River team on the successful release!

You can find a screening of Pike River near you here (remember to bring tissues)!

 

Last updated on 6 November 2025

/by

Burstyn, Mikha & Murdie Win at NZCS Awards

The 8th annual New Zealand Cinematographers Society (NZCS) Awards took place on 18 October 2025 in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, with DEGANZ members Thomas Burstyn NZCS CSC, Benjamin Mikha, and Joe Murdie taking home awards.

The NZCS Awards were established in 2016 to celebrate and honour outstanding cinematography from Aotearoa. The awards offer cinematographers the opportunity to have their work recognised by their peers and the wider industry across a range of genres, formats, and budgets. Each category presents a gold, silver, and bronze award, recognising filmmakers at multiple career levels.

Thomas won Silver for International Drama and Drama Series for his work on Invasion (S2, Ep 10 Old Friend, New Frontiers). The Apple TV series follows what happens when aliens visit Earth and threaten humanity’s existence. The show unfolds in real time through the eyes of five ordinary people across the globe as they struggle to make sense of the chaos unravelling around them.

Both Benjamin and Joe won Silver Awards in the Social Media & Online Category. Benjamin won for his work on The Warrior Within, a minute-long video about the art of fire knife dancing filmed in Oahu, Hawai’i. Joe took home the silver for his micro-doc ZƎDYN, which follows a young skatboarde from Wānaka.

Benjamin also won Gold in the Specialised Category for his work on Inhabitants, a compilation of time-lapse, hyper-lapse, motion control time-lapse, and drive-lapse footage from around the world.

On the night, DEGANZ Executive Director, Tui Ruwhiu, presented the Short Film, News & Current Affairs, Magazine, Lifestyle & Reality, and Corporate, Brand & Promo Awards.

DEGANZ ED Tui Ruwhiu presents Adam Luxton with an NZCS Silver Award for Short Films.

Congratulations, Thomas, Benjamin, Joe, and all winners at the 2025 NZCS Awards!

 

Last updated on 6 November 2025

/by