Our Board
DEGANZ is an incorporated society that employs staff and is overseen by a board elected from the membership.
Robyn Paterson
President
Robyn Paterson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and experienced television factual series director and producer. Her first documentary feature, Finding Mercy, premiered at IDFA in 2012, followed in 2019 by second feature In The Zone. Her debut narrative short premiered at NZIFF in the same year. Robyn’s television work includes Down for Love, Grand Designs New Zealand, Rachel Hunter’s Tour of Beauty, and Attitude, amongst others.
Auckland / Contact >
Steven Chow
Vice-President
Steven is a first generation Chinese New Zealand filmmaker with over 20-years of experience working as an editor in New Zealand as well as a stint in London. Recent editing credits include I Am, Cold Case and Lap of Luxury. Steven has also garnered attention as a director for his short films including his award-winning crime thriller short, Munkie. He has also co-produced and co-directed Meng, a one-hour bilingual documentary on Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon for Whakaata Māori. Steven hopes to continue developing projects with the focus for more Pan-Asian representation in front of and behind the screen in Aotearoa.
Auckland / Contact >
Phil Gore
Treasurer
Phil is a chartered accountant and production accountant with extensive experience in the screen industry. Since 2008, Phil has been working with the chartered accountancy firm, VCFO Group Ltd (previously Pieter Holl & Associates Ltd), which has a strong focus on the film and television industry and is a sponsor of DEGANZ. Prior to this, Phil worked as a freelance production accountant for 8 years in NZ and Australia.
Auckland
National Executive
Chris Dudman
Chris Dudman’s film-making career started in 1990 when ‘Blackwater Summer’, his graduation film at the Royal College of Art in London, was nominated for a Student Oscar and went on to win numerous international awards. He spent several years directing and editing arts documentaries for television in the UK before moving back to New Zealand. He has written and directed one off documentaries and documentary series for New Zealand television including New Zealand at War, Zoo, Protecting the Border and the critically acclaimed, The Day That Changed My Life. He directed two NZFC short films – The Graffiti of Mr. Tupaia and Choice Night – and he was also the lead director and co-writer of Harry, the gritty TV3 crime series starring Sam Neill and Oscar Kightley. More recently directed two episodes of James Patterson’s true crime anthology drama series Murder Is Forever for Discovery ID USA and the dramatic sequences in the award-winning TVNZ docu-drama By the Balls. Chris has also directed Television commercials throughout his career, firstly with Silverscreen and then through his own production company Robber’s Dog Films. His latest offering is New Zealand’s favourite ad of the moment, the three-legged dog for Trustpower.
Auckland / Contact >
Margot Francis
Margot has extensive experience as a drama and documentary feature editor, both in New Zealand and the United States. Highlights in the US include Saturday Night Live shorts and a feature film Nothing Lasts Forever. She won an Emmy Award for editing a documentary of the Broadway musical Sarafina. In New Zealand in 2012 she was nominated twice in the same drama editing category of the NZ Television Awards, for Siege and Bliss, she won for Bliss. Documentary feature highlights include Yellow Is Forbidden, For My Father’s Kingdom, Girl on the Bridge, Mothers of the Revolution, Valerie Adams More Than Gold.
Auckland / Contact >
Rāhera Herewini-Mulligan (Ngāi Tūhoe/Ngāi Tai/Te Whānau a Apanui)
Rāhera is a field director and editor who is a fluent speaker of te reo Māori with 20+ years’ experience in the television industry. As an editor, she has a wealth of experience across documentary, reality, children and magazine style genres. From Police Ten 7 (TVNZ) to Moving Out with Kanoa (Three) and a lot of shows for Māori Television. She is also passionate about Kapa haka and is an event/stage manager for Primary School, Secondary School (ASB Polyfest) and Senior Kapa Haka competitions across Tāmaki Makaurau.
Auckland / Contact >
Celia Jaspers
Celia has over 30 years of experience in the industry she loves. Equally a Director and Editor, the last 15 years have also evolved in to Series Producing and Directing. She’s worked all around New Zealand, independent and for network, and several years in Sydney at Channel 7 and Foxtel. With over 1100 hours of director credits across many genres primarily in television. She is very experienced in factual and documentary, being a regular contributor to NZ’s most beloved programme Country Calendar, and is simultaneously branching in to narrative work. Completing 3 short films since 2020 (1 currently in post), the film Milk, has garnered international acclaim in over 100 film festivals, including selection in 5 academy accredited film fests. She is currently finishing The Polycees with the aim to further develop a feature film and move in to Drama directing for television and film.
Wairarapa/Wellington / Contact >
Te Rurehe Paki
‘Ko te ahi whakakakā, ko te ahi whakahikahika, ko te ahi whakakihihī, hei whakahoro kakā i te manawa. Ka tuu ki te mura o te ahi, pae tu, pae hinga, karawhiua ki ngā pari karangaranga, whakapaohotia atu rā, kia haruru ki te rangi, kia rū ki te nuku, ko Te Rurehe tēnei, e tau nei e.’
Te Rurehe is a video editor and owner of The Suite Limited, the post-production facility that has shaped numerous television series and films including 2021 NZIFF Jury Award Winner Washday, 2019 Victoria Film Festival Winner Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen and the 2018 Fifo Film Festival Winner Making Good Men. His career started at ten years old as a performer with the musical Ahorangi-Genesis. Since then he has been applying his skill as a storyteller with his passion for computers and technology. Editing was a natural fit. He promotes opportunities to do this in his first language, te reo Māori, and share with audiences what was nurtured in him – a unique Māori worldview. Past projects he has edited include 2021 NZIFF NZ’s Best Jury Award Winner Short film Washday; 2019 Victoria Film Festival Cultural Currents Award Winner, Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen; Fifo Film Festival Winner, and 2017 NZTV Awards Winner, Best Documentary, Making Good Men.
Auckland /
Ben Powdrell
Ben Powdrell is a freelance film and television editor with over 20 years of experience in post-production alongside a grounding in fringe theatre and comedy. He recently took a baptism of fire in visual effects editing, working for Wētā FX for 5 years, Mr Corman for Apple TV and Wellington Paranormal Season 3, before returning to his passion for narrative storytelling. He completed his Masters in Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in 2020, has several projects in development and has a series of digital interactive children’s books due for release in 2023 for Rascality Media. 2023 will also see the premiere of Red, White and Brass a feature comedy Ben edited for Piki Films alongside Damon Fepulea’i, and River of Freedom an independent feature documentary he is currently editing alongside regular television duties.
Wellington / Contact >
Justin Scott
Justin Scott (Ngāpuhi) is a Director and Producer who prides himself in sharing stories from underrepresented communities. As a Queer, Māori, Neurodiverse man living with ADHD, his practice often touches upon stories from these communities and explores intersectionality. Currently, Justin is working as a director and associate producer for upcoming TVNZ series Four Go Flatting – following four young men with intellectual disabilities tackling flatting and independence for the first time. He has been working as a director for Sunday morning series Attitude for the past four years, also directing on the company’s children’s show George and Me for HEIHEI, and intersectional series What’s the Disabili-tea for RNZ. Alongside his directing work, Justin has produced numerous short films with a Te Ao Māori focus including He Hekenga Tūhura and HAKA HAHA. Both of these films have had successful international festival runs, with both premiering internationally at the world’s largest indigenous film festival ImagineNATIVE in Toronto. Prior to his work in the documentary space, Justin cut his teeth working in Children’s television including Let’s Get Inventin’ and Sticky TV.
Auckland / Contact >
Rebecca Tansley
Drawing on a long career in storytelling across the media Rebecca has been focused on telling stories for the screen for more than ten years as a director, writer and producer working across documentary, drama and the performing arts. Her award-winning documentaries Crossing Rachmaninoff and The Heart Dances have screened at festivals around the world, in cinemas throughout New Zealand and on Netflix and HBO respectively. Her film of a live opera, Semele, won a 2022 NZTV award for best Entertainment Programme while her short film of the same year, The Finding enjoyed more than a dozen festival outings including Academy Award-accredited In the Palace and Show Me Shorts. Her latest film with NZ Opera, The Strangest of Angels, premiered in the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2023 and was awarded Special Mention for Extraordinary Artistic Achievement at the 60th Golden Prague International Television Festival. Rebecca is currently developing her third feature documentary and has a feature screenplay in development.
Auckland / Contact >
Gaysorn Thavat
Gaysorn Thavat began in the NZ film industry in 1994, working in the camera department where she developed a love for visual storytelling. In 2004, Gaysorn began directing television commercials, working across the US and Australasian markets and is currently represented by Exit Films, Grand Large in the US. SPY FILMS in Canada. In 2009 she won a Gold Film Lion in Cannes for the Breast Cancer Research Trust. In 2009, Gaysorn’s short film Brave Donkey was selected for numerous festivals including London BFI, Locarno, Melbourne, SXSW, New Zealand IFF – winning best actor for Cameron Rhodes at the Show Me Shorts Festival. In 2018, Gaysorn directed episodes of the comedy series Fresh Eggs for Warner Brothers, and episodes of crime, thriller The Gulf for Screentime. In 2019 Gaysorn directed her feature length film The Justice of Bunny King which debuted in competition at Tribeca in 2021 and garnered a special mention in the Nora Ephron award for the leads Essie Davis and Thomasin McKenzie. The film was also selected for Melbourne International Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Sydney Film Festivals. Gaysorn was born in Bangkok, Thailand and is of Chinese heritage (Teochew). She identifies as NZ Chinese.
Auckland / Contact >