Simon Riera
Simon Riera (pronounced Re-air-ah) fell in love with filmmaking while studying geology at Otago University. Since then his work as a cinematographer has included five features — spanning everything from Hopeless to Housebound — award-winning work on TV thriller The Cult, and an array of noteworthy short films.
Conon Fraser
As writer and presenter of The World Around Us, and producer of Looking at New Zealand, Conon Fraser was an early television celebrity. He joined the National Film Unit in 1969 and continued to make films documenting his adopted country’s landscape and history, and New Zealanders’ way of life. Fraser died on 17 June 2014, aged 84.
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.
Paul Swadel
Elam graduate Paul Swadel showed his eye for the artistic and the eyecatching both in his own award-winning work as a director — short films, arts programmes (Colin McCahon: I Am), commercials — and as producer: through collaborations with animator James Cunningham and on digi-feature incubator Headstrong. Swadel died in March 2016.
Shane Loader
Shane Loader has credits as editor, cameraman, producer, and writer/director (including Clermont-Ferrand selected short The Terrorist). Since 2008, alongside partner Andrea Bosshard, he has begun making and distributing feature films through filmmaking initiative Torchlight Films. The pair's third feature The Great Maiden's Blush won acclaim when it was released in 2016.
Lindsay Shelton
After time in print and television news, and nine years commanding the Wellington Film Festival, Shelton began his dream job — selling local films for the New Zealand Film Commission. During a 22 year run as the commission's first marketing director he handled sales for more than 60 feature films, including Goodbye Pork Pie, An Angel at My Table and Once Were Warriors.
Ron McIntyre
As a war correspondent filming the New Zealand forces in Italy and the Middle East, Ron McIntyre played a key role in supplying the raw material for the early films of the National Film Unit. After nearly four years overseas, he returned home and tried his hand at independent filmmaking. McIntyre spent just over seven years with the NFU as a cameraman and director, and also worked briefly for Pacific Films.
Bert Bridgman
Remembered by his colleagues as “the leader in capturing New Zealand scenery on film from 1923 to 1954”, Bert Bridgman began his career as a cameraman in the days of silent film, and later directed the Centennial film One Hundred Crowded Years. He served as a war correspondent in the Pacific for the National Film Unit and was chief colour cameraman at the time of his death.
Stewart Main
Stewart Main is a director noted for his strong sense of visual style, and commitment to themes of individuality and sexuality. Alongside his own projects (including 2005 feature 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous), a fruitful partnership with Peter Wells has produced several noted dramatic and documentary films, including colonial-set bodice-ripper Desperate Remedies.
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is one of the most dynamic — and applauded — filmmakers to emerge from Australasia. Campion's CV includes Cannes-winning road trip Peel, An Angel at My Table, based on the life of writer Janet Frame, and award-winning mini-series Top of the Lake. With her twisted settler romance The Piano (1993), she became the first woman to take the top award at the Cannes Film Festival.