Barbara Darragh
Barbara Darragh's screen costumes have been worn by ghosts, prostitutes, Māori warriors and Tainuia Kid Billy T James. An award-winner for The Dead Lands, River Queen and The End of the Golden Weather, Darragh's CV includes TV shows Under the Mountain and Greenstone, plus more than a dozen other features. She also runs Auckland costume hire company Across the Board.
Allen Guilford
Allen Guilford was a prolific and much admired cinematographer, whose host of television programmes ranged from 1970s TV landmark The God Boy to colonial melodrama Greenstone. Guilford won NZ Film Awards for his work on movies The Footstep Man, coming of age tale The Climb, and blockbuster What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? He passed away on 10 March 2009.
Keith Aberdein
Keith Aberdein is probably best known for playing the small-town policeman who arouses Bruno Lawrence's ire, in Kiwi screen classic Smash Palace. But his screen work covers almost every angle: from covering the Wahine disaster as a reporter, to directing, to writing scripts for some of the most ambitious television dramas of the 1970s.
Richard Fletcher
Producer and Co-President of SPADA (the Screen Production and Development Association), Richard Fletcher has worked on Vincent Ward's River Queen, and helped arrange foreign finance for movies The Strength of Water and Under the Mountain. Fletcher is Managing Director of production company Libertine Pictures.
James Wallace
James Wallace, KNZM, is a patron of cinema, among other types of art. His CV as a producer of short films includes Accidents and Cannes success Planet Man. Wallace produced pioneering AIDS drama A Death in the Family and acclaimed feature Desperate Remedies. He was the Company Secretary and Solicitor for cinema chain Kerridge Odeon, and has spent time on the board of the NZ Film Commission.
Simone Kessell
Simone Kessell debuted as part-Māori, Australian-raised teenager Hannah Tumai, in 1992 soap Homeward Bound. After spending time in the fantasy lands of Hercules and Xena, the Aucklander's next big role was as a TV journalist on Cover Story. Since hit 2001 movie Stickmen, and playing romantic lead in colonial TV drama Greenstone, Kessell has worked largely in Australia (including hit Underbelly) and the US.
Geoff Murphy
Geoff Murphy was a leading figure in the new wave of Kiwi filmmakers that emerged in the 1970s. His movie Goodbye Pork Pie became the first blockbuster of the local film renaissance. He completed an unsurpassed triple punch with Utu and sci-fi classic The Quiet Earth. Noted for his skill at action, knockabout comedy, and melding genres, Murphy spent a decade in Hollywood before returning home.
Michael Dean
Palmerston North-born Michael Dean won fame as a longtime presenter on pioneering BBC arts show Late Night Line-Up. Although his three decade broadcasting career was mostly spent in England, Dean also did time downunder. In 1972 he presented an opinionated Survey special on how New Zealand had changed, followed by talk show Dean on Saturday. He passed away in England on 5 October 2015.
Chris Thomson
While still in his 20s Chris Thomson was given command of a number of landmark New Zealand TV dramas, including genre-hopping colonial tale The Killing of Kane and The Alpha Plan (1969), Aotearoa’s first dramatic TV series. After time working for the BBC, he moved to Australia and began a busy career as a director, including credits on high profile mini-series 1915 and Waterfront. Thomson died on 1 July 2015.
Michael Noonan
Michael Noonan is a legend in New Zealand scriptwriting, and not just because he was amongst the first to prove you could actually make a living at it. Creator of landmark New Zealand shows The Governor and Close to Home, Noonan's work has often explored ideas of power and social injustice.