The Highs and Lows of NZ’s Screen Industry
Last weekend was the latest iteration of the Big Screen Symposium, and it was full of highs and lows.
Great speakers, great sessions, and some interesting sneak peeks at tantalising, upcoming NZ films, but some sobering statistics from NZ On Air.
In their latest stakeholder survey, 78% of respondents say their levels of pessimism have increased over the last two years. Only 35% of respondents agree that NZ On Air makes the right funding choices, while 43% feel it is focused on funding the right things. In these two areas, the trends have been against NZ on Air’s decision-making across the last five years.
One of the biggest questions that has been plaguing me and many others around the screen industry is why are so many people out of work in the domestic screen sector when the levels of production funding are only down at NZFC?
Some say that it’s actually the more established workers who usually work for established companies that are unemployed, while NZ On Air funding flows to more projects with emerging companies and workers.
I took a look at the July 2024 – April 2025 funding announcements for Non-Fiction and Scripted. Just over $85 million went out during that period; $33.6 mil. to Non-Fiction and $51.7 mil. to Scripted.
Of that total $85 mil., at least $55.5 mil. (about 63%) went to long-established production companies, while at least 55% of the Non-Fiction funding and 68% of the Scripted funding went to long-established companies.
At first look, then, the ‘emerging’ hypothesis doesn’t seem to make sense. Unless the established companies are hiring more emerging workers than established workers. That could well be the case. Or there could be other reasons. It’s a conundrum that is doing the rounds at the moment. It’s going to take somebody willing to dig a lot deeper than I have to proffer some robust thoughts on the matter.
One thing is absolutely clear, though: while the domestic production industry flounders, the serviced production industry is facing dire peril with no concrete projects in place apart from the two international productions here right now. Everybody will be hearing more about this shortly, and not just from me.
Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director
Last updated on 10 July 2025
