FIFO Celebrates DEGANZ Members’ Mahi

The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival (FIFO) returns for 2026 with six DEGANZ members’ work featured! The festival is on now from 6-15 February in Tahiti, celebrating and amplifying the voices and cultures of Oceania through a wide showcase of stories. FIFO is also a pillar in film development in the Pacific, annually bringing filmmakers and key players in the international audiovisual industry together.

Take a look at the DEGANZ members’ mahi below!

Competing Films

FIFO selects a limited number of competing films each year to showcase the essence and core of the festival. While several themes emerge from the wider selection, the films in this category are testimony to both the great diversity of Oceania and to the high technical quality of film productions from the region.

The Haka Party Incident

Director: Katie Wolfe

On May 1st, 1979, a group of young Māori and Pasifika activists, which later became known as “He Taua”, confronted engineering students at the University of Auckland who were rehearsing a “mock” haka for their end-of-year parade. The clash that followed forced the entire nation to confront systemic racism and set in motion a process of real change.

The Stolen Children of Aotearoa

Editor: Ben Powdrell and Trinity Ludlow-Hudson

A historical and contemporary account of the New Zealand government’s systematic war against Māori children. The Stolen Children of Aotearoa exposes a legacy of harmful policies and the lasting impact they continue to have on Māori families and communities.

Non-Competing Films

These films are selected as complementary films which can shed new light, or even a new approach to the issues of the Pacific.

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds

Editor: Josh Yong

Follow a singer-songwriter from Aotearoa on an introspective journey as he explores his roots and creates his very first album in te reo Māori. An intimate quest for identity, where artistic creation becomes a language, and language becomes a message.

16th Oceanian Fiction Night

Despite being a documentary festival, FIFO opened its screen to fiction in 2007. Since then, a selection of short dramas has been screened during the festival each year. A quality selection celebrating diversity, creativity, identity, originality, traditions and modernity.

Pākehā

Writer/Director: Mana Hira Davis

In the 1980s, New Zealand, a young Pākehā mother’s determination to learn Te Reo Māori exposes her struggles, resilience, and courage, in an inspiring true story of cultural reconciliation.

Rapido

Writer/Director and Co-Editor: Richard J Curtis

A Māori boy’s favourite war comic, filled with fantastical action and adventure, sparks his imagination. During a spiritual cleansing, he discovers his estranged grandfather was a World War II veteran.

 

Last updated on 11 February 2026

/by

DEGANZ Watch List: Premiere and Returning Series

,

This DEGANZ Watch List features both a new and a returning series, with DEGANZ members as directors and editors on the projects.

Up first is Tom Sainsbury’s new dramedy series, Small Town Scandal, directed by DEGANZ members Ghazaleh Gol and Calvin Sang. The first two episodes of the eight-part season are on SkyGo and Neon now, with new episodes dropping on Mondays.

Next is the third season of Scotty Morrison’s Origins, edited by fellow member Emma Patterson. This season continues his search to understand more about the origins of Māori from voyages across the Pacific Ocean to discovering Aotearoa. You can find episodes one and two on TVNZ+.

Small Town Scandal

Comedy Drama Series

Directors: Ghazaleh Gol and Calvin Sang

Tom Sainsbury brings his hit true-crime parody podcast to the screen. The beloved comedian plays a disgraced journalist-turned-true-crime podcast host investigating the death of his millionaire uncle in a town filled with eccentric suspects.

 

Origins

Factual Series

Directors: Dan Salmon and Whatanui Flavell

Editor: Emma Patterson

Scotty Morrison is back, following in the footsteps of the first explorers and settlers of Aotearoa, as they sailed down from Hawaiki to their new home.

 

Last updated on 19 February 2026

/by

2026 Is Upon Us

View from the Top banner

While there has been a delay in the good weather arriving, it’s now back. At least for the moment where I’m sitting and writing this. In Auckland.

It’s just one of the positives of the New Year.

At the box office:

  • Tinā is currently at $6,486,864
  • Pike River sits at $1,439,550
  • Prime Minister is recording $1,094,292

We have two features screening at Sundance in Mum I’m Alien Pregnant and Big Girls Don’t Cry.

Crocodile is making a showing at Berlinale.

TOITŪ Visual Sovereignty, TENOR: My Name Is Pati, and Holy Days go to the Santa Barbara Film Fest, with Holy Days securing US theatrical distribution—not an easy feat for an NZ film.

This is New Zealand feature film success.

Success in TV is harder to gauge because it operates under a different model. That said, many shows are still being made with NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho support. We can be thankful that NZoA, TMP and the NZFC continue to receive government funding to finance screen industry activity.

International production in NZ is clearly happening with at least two new(ish) major projects underway. And the B.O. success of Avatar: Fire and Ash may give some hope to the future of that franchise.

At DEGANZ, we have two new board members in directors Jesse Griffen and Kim Webby, adding their significant experience and expertise to the guild’s brain trust. ASDACS has a refreshed board as well, bringing what we hope will be positive outcomes for directors and directors’ orgs on both sides of the Tasman.

The year ahead has challenges in front of us. As it does for all other orgs in the screen industry. But that’s nothing new. Every year now brings instability and change driven by local and global pressures that we just have to ride out as we have done to now.

We have some exciting workshops and events coming this year. More on these later.

And with the election called for 7 November, we all have an opportunity to help determine our futures by voting.

Wishing you the greatest success in your endeavours in 2026. DEGANZ will definitely be doing its best to support you in your efforts.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

Last updated on 29 January 2026

/by

‘TENOR,’ ‘TOITŪ’ and ‘Invisible Dragons’ Head to Santa Barbara

Three films from DEGANZ members are featuring at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) next month. SBIFF is running from 4-14 February, marking the 41st iteration of the festival, discovering and showcasing the best in independent and international cinema.

Rebecca Tansley‘s TENOR: My Name is Pati is celebrating its world premiere at SBIFF. The film traces the incredible journey of celebrated opera singers and brothers Pene and Amitai Pati. By weaving intimate family archival footage with behind-the-scenes observations and soaring performances, the film blends humour and heart to reveal the power of family, cultural pride, and determination when chasing dreams.

Rebecca comments on the selection in a NZFC press release, saying,

Our TENOR: My Name Is Pati āiga feels deeply uplifted to have the film welcomed into this festival. There’s something fitting about a World Premiere on the edge of the Pacific, in a place that played such a key role in Pene and Amitai’s early careers, before the film travels homeward to Sāmoa and Aotearoa shortly after,

Joining TENOR at SBIFF is another documentary feature, TOITŪ Visual Sovereignty, edited by Cushla Dillon, Brendon Chan, and Huhana Ruri-Panapa. It offers unprecedented insight into the curation of the Toi Tū Toi Ora: Contemporary Māori Art exhibition, revealing the struggle for Māori artistic sovereignty within the structures of Aotearoa New Zealand’s cultural institutions.

The drama short Invisible Dragons, written and directed by Victoria Boult and edited by Jack Woon, will also be screening. When a determined young woman confronts her estranged, conspiracy-obsessed father, she must face the chilling question: what if he’s not entirely wrong?

 

Last updated on 29 January 2026

/by

DEGANZ Members Selected for Script to Screen’s Story Camp Aotearoa and FilmUp 2026

2026 is kicking off strong with exciting development news! Congratulations to the eight DEGANZ members who have been selected for Script to Screen’s feature film initiatives, Story Camp Aotearoa and FilmUp. Both programmes will take place later this year and offer the filmmakers a stepping stone towards making their first features.

Members Jamie Lawrence, Te Waiarangi Ratana, and Lucy Wigmore will be packing their bags to attend this year’s Story Camp Aoteara. All three are attending the development programme in both writing and directing roles on their respective projects.

Story Camp, which has tikanga and Māoritanga embedded in its kaupapa, is unique in its ability to encourage filmmakers to shut out the noise of their day-to-day lives in order to dig deep into their script’s development. The five-day residential development lab enables participating filmmakers to hone their craft, voice, and vision, deepening their understanding of the needs of their script. In addition to one-to-one sessions with industry advisors, participants also engage in project-based group workshops, panel discussions, sessions with actors, and talks from guest advisors from other art forms. Each team will also work with advisors who are chosen specifically for the needs of the project and where it sits in the development journey.

Meanwhile, Lynda Chanwai-Earle, Liv McClymont, Hweiling Ow, Phillida Perry, and Stella Reid are taking part in the twelfth edition of FilmUp.

The feature film mentorship programme is for writers, directors, and producers who are ready to take the next step towards making a feature film. Across six months, each filmmaker will pair with an esteemed industry mentor, participate in group work and round tables, and receive wrap-around support in the development of their projects and careers.

See more about the projects for both programmes below.

Story Camp Aotearoa 2026

DAZ

Writer/Director: Jamie Lawrence
Producer: Thomas Coppell

Manu Masters

Writer/Director: Te Waiarangi Ratana
Producer: Keisha Castle-Hughes

The Delusions

Co-Writer/Director: Lucy Wigmore
Co-Writer: Michael Beran
Story Collaborators: Gin Wingmore and Tandi Wright

FilmUp 2026

Little Yellow Peril

Writer: Lynda Chanwai-Earle

Wunderbar

Writer/Director: Liv McClymont

Pohpoh Wants to Die

Writer: Hweiling Ow

THE LONGEST DRINK IN TOWN

Producer: Phillida Perry

Stage Challenge

Writer/Director: Stella Reid

 

Last updated on 29 January 2026

/by