Max Cryer
Max Cryer’s career as an entertainer has encompassed singing on stage and screen, time in the United States, and pioneering live talk shows on television (Town Cryer). After a busy decade of TV presenting beginning in the late 60s, Cryer went behind the scenes to produce a clutch of quiz shows — before a late flowering as a prolific, bestselling author, exploring his love of words and Kiwi culture.
Jonathan Brough
Jonathan Brough's short films have screened at Cannes, Edinburgh and America's Slamdance Film Festival. His directing CV includes episodes of Outrageous Fortune, the acclaimed The Insiders Guide to Happiness and mockumentary The Pretender, followed by a run of acclaimed Australian TV comedies (Rosehaven, The Family Law). He also edited award-winning documentary Colin McCahon: I Am.
Roger Donaldson
Roger Donaldson is notable for spearheading the New Zealand film renaissance with Sleeping Dogs (1977). He has been busy directing in Hollywood for much of the period since. Donaldson's first Kiwi story since acclaimed drama Smash Palace (1981) was Burt Munro biopic The World’s Fastest Indian (2005) — the most successful New Zealand film on home soil until the arrival of Taika Waititi's Boy in 2010.
Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis alternates a busy diet of acting in the United States (where he's forged a reputation as the actor to call on, for roles of varied ethnicity) with smaller scale New Zealand projects — including co-producing Taika Waititi smash Boy. His CV of Kiwi classics includes playing Pai's father in Whale Rider, Uncle Bully on Once Were Warriors, and bipolar chess champion Genesis Potini in The Dark Horse.
Roger Hall
Roger Hall began writing and acting on television in the late 1960s. In 1976 his debut play Glide Time became a sellout. Later Hall turned this satire of bureaucrats into Gliding On, arguably New Zealand's most successful sitcom to date. Play Middle Aged Spread became a film in 1979. Hall went on to write marital comedy Conjugal Rights for English television. He remains the country's most successful playwright.
Steve Roche
Steve Roche is one third of Plan 9, a musical collective whose CV of soundtracks includes 20 plus features and over 130 hours of television. Roche first played with David Donaldson and Janet Roddick in celebrated band Six Volts. Since then they have won multiple soundtrack awards, and worked on everything from Forgotten Silver to What We Do in the Shadows. Roche also plays in bands Thrashing Marlin and The Labcoats.
Ivars Berzins
Ivars Berzins fell in love with photography aged eight, en route to TV assignments across NZ, in Norwegian fjords, and in East Timor. Berzins was chief cameraman in TVNZ's Wellington office before leaving in 1996 to start company Pacific Crews (now Pacific Screen), which he went on to run with his wife, producer Amanda Evans. These days he directs as well as films, including on documentary series New Zealand Stories.
Gavin Wood
After working his way up through the ranks of TVNZ in the 80s, producer Gavin Wood travelled the world to work on reality game shows across 10 countries. Alongside work on the local versions of popular game shows such as Wheel of Fortune, he produced live coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup opening ceremony on the Auckland waterfront — which went live to 1.5 billion people worldwide.
Waihoroi Shortland
A veteran figure in Māori broadcasting, Waihoroi Shortland has also been an actor (Rain of the Children, Boy), scriptwriter (Crooked Earth) and Māori advisor (The Piano). In 2003 he won the NZ Film Award for Best Actor, after playing Shylock in movie The Māori Merchant of Venice. In 2015 he became the first chair of Te Mātāwai, the organisation charged with revitalising te reo on behalf of Māori.
Alun Bollinger
Alun Bollinger, MNZM, has been crafting the slanting southern light onto film and other formats, for almost 40 years. He is arguably New Zealand's premier cinematographer; images framed by Bollinger's camera include some of the most indelible memories to come from iconic films like Goodbye Pork Pie, Vigil and Heavenly Creatures.