Day One (formerly Someday Stories) is gearing up to premiere this year’s round of short films, including projects from DEGANZ members Seunghoon Sung, Joshua Siu, and Ricky Townsend.
Each year, Day One hosts a short film grant and mentorship programme for new and emerging filmmakers in Aotearoa. The shorts selected explore cultural, social, and political issues by taking story risks, pushing the envelope, and looking to the future.
Check out DEGANZ members’ projects Behind the White Wall and Wilbert Wire below.
Behind the White Wall
Writer/Director: Seunghoon Sung
Producer: Joshua Nicholas Siu
A Korean immigrant dad, working as a construction painter, mentors a new young worker while simultaneously battling melancholia and guilt as he awaits the arrival of his family.
Wilbert Wire
Writer/Director and Editor: Ricky Townsend
Wilbert, an autistic-coded robot and art student, is tasked to make a painting about love. Wilbert’s mission to create this magnum opus takes him on a quest of slapstick miming, invisible trains, and a very special Mother’s Day gift.
With a few DEGANZ members in the mix, it’s also great to see Incubator alum Michelle Ang (2020) and Jaimee Poipoi (2023) as mentors on two of the other projects this year.
http://degnz.sensedesign.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Day-One-Shorts.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2024-08-28 22:49:132024-08-28 22:50:02Day One Premieres ‘Behind the White Wall’ and ‘Wilbert Wire’
DEGANZ members have been working away over the past couple of years to bring about new documentary projects focusing on some of Aoteatroa’s top para-athletes and their hopes to qualify for the 2024 Paralympics.
Wheel Blacks: Bodies on the Line
Created by DEGANZ board president Robyn Paterson and fellow member Jai Waite with their production company Sweet Productions, the three-part docuseries follows Aotearoa’s wheelchair rugby team in their bid to qualify for the Paris Paralympics. Despite having to rely on fundraising, charity, and volunteers, the Wheel Blacks are not only fighting for a chance in Paris but also for the future of the sport that has transformed their lives and is a source of inspiration for many.
The series shows the behind-the-scenes of the sport and team, as the players juggle work, family, training, and life with a disability. Ultimately, the series is a story of grit, determination, passion, and hope.
Directed by Robyn and edited by Jai, the creative team has a strong connection with the topic. Jai is a former Wheel Blacks and was on the team when it won gold at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.
Wheel Blacks: Bodies on the Line is available on Neon and Sky Go now!
Grit & Glory
Directed by Dan Salmon (DEGANZ) and edited by fellow member Emma Patterson, Grit & Glory offers insight into the lives of six NZ athletes as they strive for the 2024 Paralympics.
Following the athletes across two years, the documentary highlights the unique highs and lows of the gruelling process of training and qualifying for the Paralympic Games. From cyclists to swimmers to track runners and a long jumper, the featured athletes share their stories and how they’ve gotten to where they are now. While some are world record holders and have competed at the Games before, others are working to qualify for the first time, pushing themselves farther than ever before.
In an interview with the NZ Herald, executive producer and field director Robyn Scott-Vincent expresses the documentary’s aim to demonstrate that the para-athletes are elite sportsmen, pursuing their sport at an elite level saying,
When you watch the games you don’t understand a lot about the back story. You should by the end of [the documentary] really champion these athletes and know what it’s really been like for them to get there. They absolutely meet their challenges every day head on and they’re not asking for sympathy.
http://degnz.sensedesign.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Sports-Doco.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2024-08-28 15:17:312024-08-28 15:18:39Sport Doco Fans Delight! ‘Wheel Blacks: Bodies on the Line’ and ‘Grit & Glory’ Out Now
DEGANZ is excited to announce the three New Zealand directors selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival’s (MIFF) Accelerator Lab. Each director is attending with a short film screening at the festival.
The Accelerator Lab will take place across four days during the festival this year which is running from 8-25 August. It is designed to nurture tomorrow’s top screen directors on the journey towards their first long-form works.
Awanui is a filmmaker and television director of proud Māori descent. Her distinctive cinematic voice is informed by her steadfast commitment to authentic Māori storytelling and wahine perspective. She earned the NZFC Māori Screen Excellence Award for her direction of Titty & Bash in the acclaimed portmanteaux film Waru and is an alumna of Jane Campion’s A Wave in the Ocean Crest programme. Her 18 years of production experience have been balanced between writing, directing and script supervision.
First Horse Aotearoa, 1826. A dying man rides home along the coastline, while a Māori girl weaves a toy boat. She ventures through the forest to launch her boat and is led astray. Sensing danger, she hides and spies on the man and his horse. Fascinated by the horse, she approaches the man. Realising he may have infected her with his disease, he faces a dark dilemma: let her go and risk spreading the illness further or end it there.
Te Waiarangi
Ngāi Tūhoe and based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington). Raised by a single mother, surrounded by whanau and contemporary Māori art. For Te Waiarangi, storytelling is like a responsibility – if you can tell stories, you should. He wants to make films that uplift and celebrate Māori and Indigenous peoples. Te Waiarangi has been working steadily as an Assistant Director since 2018 which led to being invited to the writer’s room for Wellington Paranormal Season 4.
Honey Kaha Presented to us in mockumentary style by writer/director and lead actress of Honey Kaha, Dr. Julia Love invites you to rediscover the genre-bending romp of New Zealand’s first badass wahine hero in this unearthed, early 80s funny, silly and smart action-thriller, complete with intentionally campy production values, over-the-top dialogue and hilarious yet thrilling bouts of action and violence!
Vea Mafile’o
Vea, the founder of Taro Patch Creative, is an award-winning Director/Producer with a vibrant passion for Pasifika arts. She excels in nurturing Pacific storytelling, with extensive experience in roles like Production Designer, Camerawoman, Reporter, Director, and Producer. Her works, including documentaries and dramas, have premiered at prestigious festivals like Berlinale and Sundance. Vea’s achievements include directing acclaimed TV series and founding the Nuku’alofa Film Festival. A practising artist, she holds a BVA and PGDip in Moving Image Installation from Auckland University.
Lea Tupu’anga / Mother Tongue Katherine, a young speech therapist of Tongan and European heritage has lied about her Tongan language skills to work with Siaosi — an elderly patient with aphasia who has lost his ability to speak English. Out of her depth, Katherine must find a way to communicate or risk her patient’s life.
http://degnz.sensedesign.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MIFF-AL.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2024-08-14 17:21:002024-08-14 17:21:00Three New Zealand Directors Selected for the 2024 MIFF Accelerator Lab
Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End has been selected to screen in the Centerpiece programme at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), marking the film’s North American premiere. DEGANZ members Te Rurehe Paki and Martin Brinkler, ACE edited the film, which was written by Tim Worrall (DEGANZ).
The Centerpiece programme honours and celebrates cinematic achievements by curating compelling stories from global perspectives. The programme reflects TIFF’s commitment to providing an elevated platform for international cinema, acclaimed titles from festivals around the world, highly anticipated premieres from international talents, and the latest work of influential filmmaking luminaries.
Visually spectacular and told from an staunchly Māori perspective, Ka Whawhai Tonu features stunning debut lead performances from its two young stars and appearances from Māori screen legends Morrison and Cliff Curtis. With a cast and crew composed of many descendants of the actual battle of Ōrākau, director Jonathan and writer Tim Worrall draw a direct and potent connection between the legacy of the strength of one’s ancestors and the power that’s inherent in cultural perseverance.
It’s great to see this impactful film reach an international audience.
This year was the festival’s 28th run with a record attendance and various sold-out screenings rivalling the festival’s pre-pandemic years. After counting up thousands of votes from the attendees, Bookworm came out on top followed by Le Comte de Monte Cristo in silver and Rats! in third.
New Zealand audiences can now catch the film in local cinemas to see the newly introduced father and daughter head to the wilderness on a camping trip for the ultimate test of family bonding, watched from afar by a deadly black beast that could be the answer to all their woes.
Congratulations to Dan and the rest of the Bookworm team on the win and local theatrical release!
