Fiona Samuel
Fiona Samuel, MNZM, has worked prolifically across so many fields that she defies labels: aside from acting on stage and screen, she is a playwright (The Wedding Party), director (TV movies Bliss and Piece of My Heart), scriptwriter (Consent, Outrageous Fortune) and singer (musical revue Babes in the Mood).
Tracey Collins
Tracey Collins is a multi award-winning production and costume designer, who specialises in television and film work. Her career spans drama series (Maddigan's Quest), telemovies (Bliss) feature films (White Lies) and commercials, plus hundreds of original theatre works.
Michele Fantl
Michele Fantl has been producing acclaimed documentaries, telemovies and features since the 1990s, often through her production company MF Films. Along the way she has worked extensively with writer/directors Stewart Main (50 Ways of Saying Fabulous), Garth Maxwell (When Love Comes) and Fiona Samuel (Bliss).
Steve La Hood
A New Zealander of Lebanese descent, Steve La Hood joined TVNZ in the early 70s. He went on to direct on everything from Close to Home and Shortland Street, to an acclaimed documentary on Bruno Lawrence. He also produced The Marching Girls (1987), one of the first dramas to highlight contemporary women characters on NZ television. La Hood now creates museum exhibitions at company Story Inc.
Rachel Lang
Writer Rachel Lang, MNZM, has played a major hand in a host of New Zealand television dramas, including Outrageous Fortune, the iconic saga of a West Auckland family trying to go straight. Her CV also includes the long-running Go Girls, small town dramas Jackson's Wharf and Mercy Peak, plus Westside, The Almighty Johnsons, This is Not My Life, Filthy Rich and The Blue Rose.
Michelle Scullion
Since studying flute then completing a Bachelor of Music in composition, Michelle Scullion has composed for television, film, radio and stage. Her score for Bad Taste, the debut feature from Peter Jackson, was a vital component in the film’s armoury. Her screen work includes Flying Fox and a Freedom Tree, sci-fi thriller Eternity, and many short films, including four directed by Grant Lahood.
Davina Whitehouse
The late, great, Davina Whitehouse arrived in New Zealand from England in 1952, having already performed in more than 40 films. Active across multiple mediums — radio, stage, television and film — she also spent four years as an NZ Film Commission board-member. Whitehouse was still acting into her 80s.
Grant Lahood
Grant Lahood made his name with a trio of short films featuring speedy snails, troublesome mice and squabbling animal activists. After taking The Singing Trophy and Lemming Aid to success at the Cannes Film Festival, Lahood has gone on to direct documentaries, commercials and two feature films — one of which (Kombi Nation) features an all human cast.
John Anderson
John Anderson got busy directing a run of television dramas in the 1980s, including award-winning Polynesian road movie Mark ll, and two of the final works by playwright Bruce Mason. The onetime actor reinvented himself as a documentary filmmaker in the 90s, then relocated to Kiribati, where he worked on more than 400 films covering everything from climate change to dance. Anderson died in Kiribati on 19 August 2016.
Carol Smith
Since graduating from Toi Whakaari in 1989, Carol Smith has acted on stage, radio and screen, winning a Chapman Tripp award for play The Country along the way. Her CV includes short films, sketch show Away Laughing, and playing Margaret Pope on David Lange docudrama Fallout. In 1995 Fiona Samuel picked Smith for an extended solo turn as a conflicted hippie, in Samuel's directorial debut Face Value - A Real Dog.