Haigh Edits Roaring ‘Jurassic Park’ Super Bowl Ad

DEGANZ member Luke Haigh edited Taika Waititi’s recent Super Bowl ad: A reimagining of the 1993 classic Jurassic Park, with core cast members Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum reprising their original roles.

When the team’s system drops offline, a friendly Comcast Xfinity employee gets the operation back online, allowing the scientists to have a relaxing weekend in the dinosaur wildlife park and resort. Dern’s Dr Ellie Sattler comments on how bad that could’ve gone, a cheeky nod to the original film’s plot.

The ad screened just after Bad Bunny’s halftime show, which The New York Times reported reached 137.8 million viewers. In America, Super Bowl ads are renowned for being just as entertaining as the game, with some non-sports fans opting to tune in just for the commercial breaks.

It’s great to see a member’s mahi showcased on such a massive scale. Congrats, Luke!

Check out the ad below for some Jurassic Park nostalgia.

 

Last updated on 12 February 2026

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Trailer for New Feature ‘Caterpillar’ Released into the Wild

The trailer for Caterpillar, the debut feature from Chelsie Preston Crayford, edited by DEGANZ member Jonno Woodford-Robinson ANZSE, is out now.

Set in Wellington in 2003, Caterpillar is a sentimental, multi-generational drama about three women living under one roof as the delicate balance of their family begins to unravel. When a grandmother’s mind starts to fail, a teenage girl and her single-mother filmmaker are drawn into a journey that will redefine love, responsibility, and what it means to let go.

The trailer offers a first look at the film’s complicated character relationships, early-2000s setting, and introduces the film’s central visual motif – the Monarch caterpillar and butterfly – a metaphor for transformation, fragility, and resilience.

Caterpillar will be released in local cinemas on May 14, 2026.

 

Last updated on 11 February 2026

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FIFO Celebrates DEGANZ Members’ Mahi

The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival (FIFO) returns for 2026 with six DEGANZ members’ work featured! The festival is on now from 6-15 February in Tahiti, celebrating and amplifying the voices and cultures of Oceania through a wide showcase of stories. FIFO is also a pillar in film development in the Pacific, annually bringing filmmakers and key players in the international audiovisual industry together.

Take a look at the DEGANZ members’ mahi below!

Competing Films

FIFO selects a limited number of competing films each year to showcase the essence and core of the festival. While several themes emerge from the wider selection, the films in this category are testimony to both the great diversity of Oceania and to the high technical quality of film productions from the region.

The Haka Party Incident

Director: Katie Wolfe

On May 1st, 1979, a group of young Māori and Pasifika activists, which later became known as “He Taua”, confronted engineering students at the University of Auckland who were rehearsing a “mock” haka for their end-of-year parade. The clash that followed forced the entire nation to confront systemic racism and set in motion a process of real change.

The Stolen Children of Aotearoa

Editor: Ben Powdrell and Trinity Ludlow-Hudson

A historical and contemporary account of the New Zealand government’s systematic war against Māori children. The Stolen Children of Aotearoa exposes a legacy of harmful policies and the lasting impact they continue to have on Māori families and communities.

Non-Competing Films

These films are selected as complementary films which can shed new light, or even a new approach to the issues of the Pacific.

Marlon Williams: Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds

Editor: Josh Yong

Follow a singer-songwriter from Aotearoa on an introspective journey as he explores his roots and creates his very first album in te reo Māori. An intimate quest for identity, where artistic creation becomes a language, and language becomes a message.

16th Oceanian Fiction Night

Despite being a documentary festival, FIFO opened its screen to fiction in 2007. Since then, a selection of short dramas has been screened during the festival each year. A quality selection celebrating diversity, creativity, identity, originality, traditions and modernity.

Pākehā

Writer/Director: Mana Hira Davis

In the 1980s, New Zealand, a young Pākehā mother’s determination to learn Te Reo Māori exposes her struggles, resilience, and courage, in an inspiring true story of cultural reconciliation.

Rapido

Writer/Director and Co-Editor: Richard J Curtis

A Māori boy’s favourite war comic, filled with fantastical action and adventure, sparks his imagination. During a spiritual cleansing, he discovers his estranged grandfather was a World War II veteran.

 

Last updated on 11 February 2026

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DEGANZ Watch List: Premiere and Returning Series

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This DEGANZ Watch List features both a new and a returning series, with DEGANZ members as directors and editors on the projects.

Up first is Tom Sainsbury’s new dramedy series, Small Town Scandal, directed by DEGANZ members Ghazaleh Gol and Calvin Sang. The first two episodes of the eight-part season are on SkyGo and Neon now, with new episodes dropping on Mondays.

Next is the third season of Scotty Morrison’s Origins, edited by fellow member Emma Patterson. This season continues his search to understand more about the origins of Māori from voyages across the Pacific Ocean to discovering Aotearoa. You can find episodes one and two on TVNZ+.

Small Town Scandal

Comedy Drama Series

Directors: Ghazaleh Gol and Calvin Sang

Tom Sainsbury brings his hit true-crime parody podcast to the screen. The beloved comedian plays a disgraced journalist-turned-true-crime podcast host investigating the death of his millionaire uncle in a town filled with eccentric suspects.

 

Origins

Factual Series

Directors: Dan Salmon and Whatanui Flavell

Editor: Emma Patterson

Scotty Morrison is back, following in the footsteps of the first explorers and settlers of Aotearoa, as they sailed down from Hawaiki to their new home.

 

Last updated on 19 February 2026

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2026 Is Upon Us

View from the Top banner

While there has been a delay in the good weather arriving, it’s now back. At least for the moment where I’m sitting and writing this. In Auckland.

It’s just one of the positives of the New Year.

At the box office:

  • Tinā is currently at $6,486,864
  • Pike River sits at $1,439,550
  • Prime Minister is recording $1,094,292

We have two features screening at Sundance in Mum I’m Alien Pregnant and Big Girls Don’t Cry.

Crocodile is making a showing at Berlinale.

TOITŪ Visual Sovereignty, TENOR: My Name Is Pati, and Holy Days go to the Santa Barbara Film Fest, with Holy Days securing US theatrical distribution—not an easy feat for an NZ film.

This is New Zealand feature film success.

Success in TV is harder to gauge because it operates under a different model. That said, many shows are still being made with NZ On Air and Te Māngai Pāho support. We can be thankful that NZoA, TMP and the NZFC continue to receive government funding to finance screen industry activity.

International production in NZ is clearly happening with at least two new(ish) major projects underway. And the B.O. success of Avatar: Fire and Ash may give some hope to the future of that franchise.

At DEGANZ, we have two new board members in directors Jesse Griffen and Kim Webby, adding their significant experience and expertise to the guild’s brain trust. ASDACS has a refreshed board as well, bringing what we hope will be positive outcomes for directors and directors’ orgs on both sides of the Tasman.

The year ahead has challenges in front of us. As it does for all other orgs in the screen industry. But that’s nothing new. Every year now brings instability and change driven by local and global pressures that we just have to ride out as we have done to now.

We have some exciting workshops and events coming this year. More on these later.

And with the election called for 7 November, we all have an opportunity to help determine our futures by voting.

Wishing you the greatest success in your endeavours in 2026. DEGANZ will definitely be doing its best to support you in your efforts.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

Last updated on 29 January 2026

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