Taika Waititi

Taika Waititi (sometimes credited as Taika Cohen) is of Te-Whānau-ā-Apanui descent and hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast. He grew up on the East Coast and in Wellington, and attended Victoria University as an arts student.

Waititi started out as an actor, garnering an NZ Film Awards' Best Actor nomination after playing lothario flatmate Alex in Scarfies (1999). He also appeared in TV series The Strip (2002) and road movie Snakeskin.

Waititi has also won acclaim for his painting, photography, design and stand-up comedy. In 1999, as one half of comedy duo Humourbeasts, with Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame), he won the Billy T comedy award.

Tiring of the film roles he was being offered - which often involved playing comic relief -  Waititi decided he "had to make my own stories". His award-winning streak as a filmmaker began with the release of 2003 short Two Cars, One Night. A sweet, understated love story set in the car park outside a pub, Two Cars was a huge hit on the international film festival circuit. It won eight awards, including Best Short Film at the Berlin, Seattle, Oberhausen, Hamburg and AFI festivals.

In 2005, Two Cars, One Night was nominated for Best Live Action Short at the Academy Awards. During the ceremony, when his nomination was announced, Waititi gained instant notoriety - and a little animosity - by feigning sleep.

Waititi cemented his success with the short film Tama Tū (2005), centered around a troop of soldiers from the Māori Battalion during World War II. The film picked up festival prizes in Stockholm, Sundance, Indianapolis and Berlin.

In 2007, Waititi released his first feature Eagle vs Shark. The film shed the Māori-influenced humour of his early work in favour of deadpan geek chic. Eagle vs Shark is an offbeat comedy about two lonely misfits and their bumbling attempts to find love. The script was work-shopped at the prestigious Sundance Institute Directors Lab.

The feature starred Loren Horsley (based on a character she had originated) and Waititi's one-time Humourbeasts partner Jemaine Clement, who Waititi would later direct and write for in the Emmy-nominated Flight of the Conchords.

Eagle vs Shark went on to win Best Screenplay at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, a Best Feature at the Newport International Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

On the eve of the film's debut screening at the Sundance Film Festival, Variety magazine named Waititi as one of 10 directors to watch.

In 2006, Waititi was made a NZ Arts Foundation 'New Generation' Laureate. Since then he has directed four episodes of Flight of the Conchords, including the final episode, plus TV commercials in the United States and United Kingdom.

Waititi began writing his second feature, Boy (working titles Choice and The Volcano) long before Eagle vs Shark. The rite-of-passsage tale explores some of the characters and ideas introduced in his short Two Cars, One Night and revolves around an 11-year-old boy who spins fantasies about his ex-con father (played by Waititi).

After winning a place at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival, Boy was awarded Grand Prize in the Generation Section, one of the festival's five sub-sections devoted to new features (Generation's remit is to present "lively cinema aimed at young audiences"). Boy was also one of only 14 films to make it into the Sundance Film Festival's 'World Cinema' section, and a double award-winner at the 2010 Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam.

Within four weeks of its New Zealand release, Boy had grossed $4 million, pushing it ahead of Sione's Wedding as the most successful Kiwi comedy released on home soil. After another four weeks it had overtaken The World's Fastest Indian as the most successful local film in the country's history (not accounting for inflation).

At the Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2010, Waititi scored a triple header by winning awards for best director, screenplay and supporting actor (with Boy joining Bad Taste as one of the few Kiwi features in which the director also took one of the leading roles onscreen). As well as the best film gong, Boy also won Qantas awards for its cinematography, editing and music.

Waititi's plans to attend Boy's March 2010 Kiwi premiere were abandoned, after he won the chance to fly to New Orleans and "pursue my dream of becoming the next Cliff Curtis". Waititi had won a role as Inuit sidekick Thomas Kalmaku to superhero The Green Lantern (not to be confused with Seth Rogen's Green Hornet). The Green Lantern is directed by NZ-born Martin Campbell.

These days Waititi's career has become an extended case of ocean-hopping. Back home, he acted alongside members of the Naked Samoans in sketch show Radiradira, and directed for semi-improvised Madeleine Sami comedy series Super City (which debuted in February 2011). Around the same time in Florida, he began directing an American TV movie inspired by Bafta-nominated sitcom The Inbetweeners. The film is about four teenage boys who are caught between being cool and geeky.

Waititi was picked to helm a musical promo showcasing the major stars of American network NBC. The promo screened in a high profile slot before the 2012 Super Bowl, in what became America's most watched telecast to date.

Sources include
Rick Kissell, 'UPDATE: Super Bowl sets viewership record' - Variety, 6 February 2012
'Green Lantern v red carpet' - NZ Herald, 18 March 2010