Justin Pemberton: telling stories about outsiders…

Interview – 2018

Director Justin Pemberton has made his mark in the worlds of both music video and documentary. His doco credits include award-winners Love, Speed and Loss and The Nuclear Comeback, and hit Richie McCaw movie Chasing Great. He has also worked on multiple projects with musicians Anika Moa and Bic Runga.

In this ScreenTalk, Pemberton talks about:

Shooting lots of material while directing music videos
How a demo of 'Drive' launched Bic Runga's music career
First impressions of singer Anika Moa
Why he ended up making two very different documentaries about her
Entering the damaged nuclear reactor at Chernobyl
Relishing telling the story of a couple of underdogs in The Golden Hour
Being fascinated by the topic of the documentary I Spy (with My Five Eyes)
The moment when he wondered if he was being spied on
The "biggest thing" he has made to date: Capital in the 21st Century
How stories of outsiders have underpinned many of his films

This video was first uploaded on 6 August 2018, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

Underneath most of the stories that I've done there has been the story of an outsider . . . When I was first starting out, I got given a book and it had excercises that you could do to try and figure out what your themes are, the stories you should tell. And that was the big thing that came out, stories about outsiders.
– Justin Pemberton on telling stories of outsiders

Justin's Full Profile