DEGANZ is proud to announce the seven filmmakers from Aotearoa New Zealand attending the 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival’s (MIFF) Accelerator Lab.

Directors Todd Karehana, Ahmed Osman, Prisca Bouchet, and Nick Mayow all have shorts selected for the MIFF Accelerator Shorts programmes, also earning them spots at the Accelerator Lab. The shorts programme showcases new bold voices from a new generation of filmmakers across Australia and Aotearoa.

In addition to these selected filmmakers, DEGANZ has put forward fellow directors Victoria Boult, Mīria George, and Pon Torthienchai to attend the Lab as Express participants. While not having films in MIFF this year, these participants will take part in the Accelerator Lab alongside the festival’s selected filmmakers.

The Accelerator Lab is designed to help short film directors move towards their first long-form work. Across four days during the festival, participants attend workshops, screenings, seminars, and networking events to learn more about the creative and business aspects of filmmaking.

This year marks the third time DEGANZ has managed the participation of local filmmakers at MIFF with the financial support of the New Zealand Film Commission.

Read more about the participants and their films below.

2026 MIFF ACCELERATOR LAB DIRECTORS

Todd Karehana is a Māori and Queer writer-director. Since completing his MA in Screen Production at the University of Auckland in 2017, he has taken on leading roles as a writer, story consultant, storyliner, and script editor across series and features including Ahikāroa, The Exceptional Squad, We Are Still Here, and Ture. Between 2020 and 2023, Todd served as co-creator on two scripted series: Ngā Hau E Whā, an LGBTQA+ high-school drama that received NZ On Air development funding, and The River, a supernatural audio drama that won Best Experimental Audio at the 2023 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.

Todd has also contributed to the sector in key advisory and leadership roles: as a Funding Advisor at NZ On Air, an external advisor to Te Māngai Pāho and Fresh Shorts, and a board member of Ngā Aho Whakaari and Proud Voices on Screen.

As a director, Todd has led the creation of short films spanning documentary and fiction, including My Brother Mitchell, Young and on the Paepae, Night Ride, and Socks. He recently completed Jane Campion’s prestigious, Netflix-funded two-year director’s intensive, A Wave in the Ocean.

Todd is passionate about nuanced stories that give voice to working-class, Māori, and queer lives.

Socks

A beautifully restrained tale of queer yearning, in which a young Māori boy develops an unlikely bond with a Mormon missionary in rural New Zealand. Filmed in timeless black-and-white and anchored by a phenomenal performance by young star Monty Walker, Todd Karehana’s gentle coming-of-ager – executive-produced by Jane Campion, and debuting at the Venice International Film Festival – has all the makings of a crowd-pleasing queer classic. Socks is an evocative look at male friendship that transcends culture, religion and desire.

Ahmed Osman is a producer and filmmaker born in Somalia and raised in Wellington. Motivated by telling diverse and inclusive stories, Ahmed has directed the award-winning docu-series Third Culture Minds for TVNZ+, a series on the mental health and wellbeing of young migrants and refugees in Aotearoa. He is the producer of the SKY Originals NZ series Miles From Nowhere and co-founder of Homegrown Pictures. 

Arrival

After arriving in Aotearoa as refugees, a mother and daughter find their roles upended in the face of a new and unfamiliar world. The tension between leaving home and facing the unknown is at the core of this sensitive, emotionally engaging drama from Somalian-born, Wellington-raised filmmaker Ahmed Osman, who drew upon his own memories to evoke the experience of a child forced to navigate the world on behalf of their parent. A delicate, playful work about loss, memory and the cost of starting anew.

Prisca Bouchet and Nick Mayow are award-winning filmmakers based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Their short documentaries have screened at major film festivals including: Hot Docs, Dok Leipzig and DOC NYC. Lion Rock, their first narrative short film, had its premiere in the Orizzonti International Short Films Competition of the 2025 Venice International Film Festival.

Lion Rock

While driving along an eerie ocean road, a teenage boy and his mother hit something with their car. She insists it was nothing, but he begins to doubt her story. Inspired by a trip through Auckland’s spooky Waitākere Ranges, the latest work from award-winning filmmakers Prisca Bouchet and Nick Mayow is a unique take on the coming-of-age drama, transforming a routine drive into a mysterious thriller told from the boy’s perspective. Produced in conjunction with Jane Campion’s film school A Wave in the Ocean, this brilliantly executed short film premiered at Venice last year.

2026 MIFF ACCELERATOR EXPRESS LAB DIRECTORS

Victoria Boult (Ngāi Tahu) is an indigenous 28-year-old writer and director. She is best known for her debut television series n00b (Netflix, Canal+), which she wrote and co-directed. n00b was selected for Berlinale and Canneseries. Victoria has written for series Happiness (HBO Max), A Remarkable Place to Die (ZDF, NINE), and Ahikāroa (Whakaata Māori). She also directed Episode 4 of A Remarkable Place to Die S2. Victoria’s debut short film Invisible Dragons won Best Indigenous Short at the 2025 Bend Film Festival and was selected for the Hawai’i and Santa Barbara International Film Festivals and the Netherlands Film Festival.

Mīria George (Te Arawa, Ngāti Awa, Enuamanu, Tumutevarovaro) is a poet, writer, director, and producer of theatre and film. The feature film VAI premiered at Berlinale in 2019, marking Mīria’s debut as a writer and director of film. The award-winning short film Fire in the Water, Fire in the Sky (2021) screened internationally. Her most recent short film, Open Looks (2025), screened in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the United States. An award-winning theatremaker, Mīria’s work has toured Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Hawai’i, Canada and the United Kingdom. Miria is currently in development with two feature films.

Pon Torthienchai is a writer/director whose work explores identity, ambition, and belonging through a distinctly Thai-Kiwi lens. Working across narrative and documentary, he crafts character-driven stories that move between the everyday and the visceral world of martial arts. His credits include Brother (2020), Majesty (2021), Pincher (2013), and Rice Run (2025). He is currently in post-production on the documentary Bamboo on the Borderlines (2026), and developing his short film Shin & Bone through New Zealand’s He Kauahi Catalyst programme.