Pana Hema-Taylor: How acting can be enlightening...
Pana Hema-Taylor plays one of the petty criminals in hit TV show Westside. His other roles include based on a true story TV movie Resolve, The Brokenwood Mysteries, hit movie Boy, and road drama The Most Fun You Can Have Dying.
Michael Galvin: Shortland Street’s Dr Love...
Actor Michael Galvin is Shortland Street’s longest-serving actor, having played Dr Chris Warner on the soap for most of its 20-something years. During that time on the show, his character has survived four marriages, drug-dealing, an emergency tracheotomy, and earned the title ‘Dr Love’. Outside of Shortland Street, Galvin has written stage plays and appeared in TV series Cover Story and feature film The Climb.
Bridget Ikin: A champion for diversity and authenticity…
Producer Bridget Ikin has long been a champion for women in the screen industry. Working on both sides of the Tasman, she has collaborated with many influential creatives including Jane Campion, Alison Maclean, Stewart Main, Australian director Sarah Watt, and writers Eleanor Catton and Emily Perkins.
Close to Home: New Zealand’s first TV soap opera…
Close to Home first screened on TV One in May 1975 and ran for eight years. The popular and ground-breaking series was New Zealand television's first soap opera. It was based in Wellington and centred around the trials and tribulations of the Hearte family. At its peak in 1977, Close to Home attracted a twice weekly audience of one million viewers.
Vincent Ward: A very original filmmaker...
Vincent Ward has won an international reputation as one of New Zealand's most original and visionary filmmakers. Vigil and The Navigator played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Kiwi films to do so). In Hollywood, Ward made Robin Williams afterlife drama What Dreams May Come. Urewera-set docu-drama Rain of the Children in 2008 revisited characters from Ward's 1980 documentary In Spring One Plants Alone.
ScreenTalk Short: Alison Mau
Alison Mau has been a regular on New Zealand television for over 20 years, including time on Newsnight, Breakfast, and at the launch of TVNZ’s primetime show Seven Sharp.
ScreenTalk Short: Colin McRae
The career of producer/director Colin McRae spans 40 years, much of it in current affairs and documentary (plus time as Three's Head of Sport).