A Trying Year
2020 has certainly been a trying year.
We tried to run our professional development programme as we have done each year and the pandemic threw a spanner in the works. A shift to online worked for nearly every element of it. By moving online, we found we could reach into the regions in a way that we previously hadn’t been able to. While it’s not the perfect mechanism for delivery of workshops, it does allow participation that was previously not so easily achieved. We continue to explore how we can incorporate online delivery in our programme.
We together with the other two screen industry unions the New Zealand Writers Guild and Equity New Zealand tried to do as much as we could to get the Screen Industry Worker Bill through the first reading in the House, the Select Committee submissions and onward towards becoming legislation. Of course, COVID interrupted that as well. With it set aside while the Government responded to the coronavirus and then was distracted by the election, we were very pleased to hear a short while ago that the bill is back on the Government’s agenda under new Workplace and Safety Minister Michael Wood. We are, though, not going to see any real progress on it until 2021.
Following a considerable effort back in 2012 that was stymied at the last hurdle by Treasury, we have for the last two and a half years been trying to make headway on copyright for directors with the Copyright Act under review. We did get it included in the terms of reference for the Review and have been working very hard with help from the Australian Directors Guild and The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). Unfortunately, the election again caused a disruption to progress and we are waiting for the new Consumer and Commerce Affairs Minister David Clark to show his face on the issue.
We tried and have been successful in accessing some COVID Recovery funds. Confirmed for 2021 are a series of workshops around the motu on Rights and Remuneration, a series of one-day workshops for South Island short film directors at the new and emerging level, and a series of workshops by experienced directors on Tone: Making the Intangible Tangible. We await the results of a couple of other applications. All these workshops are part of the Government effort to build skills and capability in the sector.
On a more serious note, 2021 has been a trying time for us all because of COVID-19. Individuals, companies and organisations in the screen sector have experienced considerable difficulty— personally, financially, emotionally, psychologically—as we all have had to face the burden placed on us by the pandemic. This of course has affected everyone, not just us in the screen sector. Government and industry responded well to the screen sector’s distress and many of us are extremely fortunate to be back in work. As well, we are able to socialise, intermingle and conduct our lives in a manner not too dissimilar to pre-pandemic times—all when sickness and death from COVID is afflicting other nations much more severely. While 2020 has been hard for everyone globally, we can be thankful that we have survived somewhat unscathed.
Have we because of COVID gone through a paradigm shift in thinking about our place, importance in the world and and what we can do not just for ourselves but for others? I certainly hope so, but it’s down to each of us to make that change.
In the meantime, we wish you a meri kirihimete and ngā mihi o te tau hou!
Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director
Last updated on 17 December 2020
