Arani Cuthbert

Film and television producer Arani Cuthbert is the driving force behind Diva Productions. An entrepreneur in the New Zealand creative sector since the mid-90, she has worked across the fields of film, television and the performing arts and is now moving into digital media.

Cuthbert is best known for her work with entertainers Lynda and Jools Topp and producing their comedy series, The Topp Twins, plus Topp Twins doco Untouchable Girls. This series, which ran for three consecutive seasons, broke new ground when it first screened in 1996. It became one of TV3's top-rating shows, and in 1998 won the award for Best Entertainment Series at the New Zealand TV awards.

Cuthbert also produced Ken's Hunting and Fishing Show, presented by Lynda Topp as Ken the good Kiwi Bloke.

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, directed by Leanne Pooley, is a feature documentary about the world's only singing, dancing, comic lesbian twin sisters. Well-known in Australia and the USA as well as New Zealand for their comic characters and original brand of country music, the film celebrates their lives and work. Untouchable Girls is the most successful Kiwi documentary to win theatrical release to date; in September 2009 it won a Qantas Award for best feature made for under $1 million.

Since 1998, Cuthbert has successfully produced international and local comedians for the New Zealand Comedy Festival, in the process introducing Auckland audiences to a variety of new artists.

In 2008, Cuthbert was selected to participate in the ART Venture Accelerator Project Programme run by the Arts Regional Trust. As part of this programme, she took on the project of launching an online distribution portal for documentaries and films exploring environmental and social issues, from a Pacific perspective.

In 2010 she became one of four recipients of a Producer Award from the New Zealand Film Commission.