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HughMacdonald

  • Director
  • Producer
Hugh-MacDonald-Key-Profile.jpg

Hugh Macdonald began his long, award-studded career at the National Film Unit, where at age 25 he directed ambitious three-screen spectacular This is New Zealand (1970). It was seen by 400,000 New Zealanders. In the 1980s he produced Oscar-nominated short The Frog, the Dog, and the Devil and set up his own company, continuing a busy diet of train documentaries, commercial films and animation. 

Screenography

In Memoriam 2024
2024 Subject Short film
Pictorial Parade No. 189 - Those Magnificent Venturers
2020 Director Television
No Ordinary Sheila
2017 Camera, Producer, Director Film
Family Farming in New Zealand
2014 Director, Producer Film
That Was New Zealand
2014 Director, Producer, Camera Short film

Biography

Hugh Macdonald's filmmaking career took him underwater, inside caves, and up the Denniston railway incline. Yet despite all the journeys under his belt, he is probably best known for just 20 minutes of film, made before he turned 30: beloved three-screen spectacular This is New Zealand.

Awards

2007 New York Festivals
Bronze Medal: This is New Zealand
Finalist: Musacus - The Musical Revolution

2004 New York Festivals
Finalist: A Land Apart - Westland Milk

“That was one of the great things about working at the National Film Unit in the 60s — we could do what we wanted, as long as it wasn't offensive to whichever adminstration was in power at the time. We were frequently allowed to play with ideas we had. That was an incredible creative freedom. ”

— Hugh Macdonald

Related images

This-Is-New-Zealand-1.jpg
A crew photo for NFU film This is New Zealand. From front, starting on the left: Geoffrey Scott (executive producer), Hugh Macdonald (glasses & beard - writer/director), David Fowler (producer), Rob Ritchie (associate director), Martin Townsend (title designer), Sam Grau (camera), Mac Ashley (technical manager), Kit Rollings (sound) Brian Shennan (sound) Cecil Forsberg (title designer), Kerry Coe (technician) Ron Skelley (associate sound mixer) and technicians Bruce McKenzie, Jim Chandler &  Henry van Tulder.
Kindly supplied by The Dominon Post.
This-is-New-Zealand-wide-hero-scope.jpg
Press above for widescreen scenic view! A scene from Hugh Macdonald's three-screen spectacular This is New Zealand (1970). The film wowed audiences at a world expo in Japan, before finding unexpected success in New Zealand cinemas.
The-Governor---No-Way-to-Treat-a-Lady-thumb-2.jpg
Governor George Grey (Corin Redgrave) and friend — from the second episode of miniseries The Governor, one of two episodes directed by the National Film Unit's Hugh Macdonald.
Screen grab
The-Governor-Gallery-5.jpg
Judy Cleine as Eliza Grey in historical epic The Governor. She featured in a number of episodes, especially 'No Way to Treat a Lady', the episode devoted to her relationship with George Grey.
Kindly provided by The Dominion Post.
Orchard-Gallery-2.jpg
A promotional image from Bob Stenhouse's animated short The Orchard (1995). A decade earlier, when Stenhouse and Orchard producer Hugh Macdonald both worked at the National Film Unit, they were nominated for an Oscar for The Frog, the Dog and the Devil (1986).
Supplied by the NZ Film Commission, drawn by Bob Stenhouse
ORCH_12.jpg
A hand-drawn frame by Bob Stenhouse from his 1995 animated short The Orchard. 
Drawn by Bob Stenhouse