Owen Hughes

Owen Hughes was born in North Wales to a Welsh father and English mother. Shortly after he turned five, his family migrated to New Zealand.

Hughes was educated at Tauranga Boys’ College, followed by three years at Auckland and Victoria Universities. He left halfway through his final year of a BA in English, to work  as a negative matcher in the editing rooms of John O’Shea’s Pacific Films.

Film had been a career ambition since his fifth form. French teacher Gunter Warner, recommended Hughes go see The Wages of Fear. Hughes was already an avid matinee fan. But this new experience of foreign cinema proved intoxicating. “Forbidden fruit and Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movies were a powerful drug, but they never matched the whiff of nitroglycerine in The Wages of Fear. That’s all it took.”

Three months after Hughes began at Pacific Films, the production manager left for a job in Australia and John O’Shea promoted him. “John believed that certain physical and personality traits could predict one’s occupation,” recalls Hughes. "He also identified people’s star signs as a dinner party entertainment.”

Hughes says the four years he spent at Pacific Films was the equivalent of a Polish Film School. Amongst others, he worked alongside directors Barry Barclay and Tony Williams, and cinematographer Graeme Cowley.

Seduced by the promise of drama, Hughes then joined Downstage Theatre as a production manager. He soon discovered there was more to theatre than opening nights. His initial production - The Narrow Road to the Deep North - was directed by Ian Mune.

Hughes travelled to Britain, to spend two years working as production manager for commercials company Philip Bond Productions. Based in London, Hughes managed shoots in Nigeria, Dubai, and the Indian ocean.

Back in New Zealand, Hughes renewed the Mune connection and production managed Mune and Roger Donaldson anthology series Winners and Losers. He also managed the iconic Crunchie train robbery commercial, the first directed by Tony Williams for his own production company.

A production boom started which encouraged film facilities companies to build up infrastructure. Ambitious producers discovered all they needed was a telephone to be in business.

In 1977 Hughes started up Frame Up Films to make TV commercials. A decade of excess followed, working for a succession of high profile clients. This all came to an end with the stock market crash in 1987, heralding a change in direction.

Hughes co-produced Greg Stitt short film Just Me and Mario and production managed Jane Campion’s Angel at My Table, before re-establishing Frame Up as a documentary and drama house. In the next ten years he produced seven one-hour dramas (many of which played in the Sunday theatre slot), three half hours, several short films and forty odd documentaries. Many were made alongside producer Rachel Jean.

Having produced a number of films for director Niki Caro - including her early shorts The Summer the Queen Came and the Cannes-nominated Sure to Rise - Hughes and Caro would return to Cannes for their debut feature, Memory and Desire, when it was selected for Critics’ Week in 1998.

Since then Hughes has been busy developing or shooting a slate of diverse projects. As well as producing films for others he also directed a documentary for the Artsville series. Out of Darkness: Out of India, was a study of Kiwi Indian painter Prakash Patel and his divided heritage.

In 2002 Hughes went back to University part-time and completed a BA and BA (Hons) in film. He is currently finishing his masters thesis, entitled ‘What is a Screenplay?’. 

Hughes has been a member of the New Zealand Film Commission’s short film panel, a shareholder and director of Onfilm magazine, an executive member of SPADA and chairman for two years of the Awards Society.