https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/WEBSITE-Featured-Image-2.png4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2026-10-08 13:11:462026-10-08 22:38:02DEGANZ Watch List: From Dinner Table To Front Line
This week, we’ve got seven DEGANZ members on our watchlist, with new drama series, ad campaigns, and docuseries to watch.
First up is the hit crime drama A Remarkable Place to Die Season 2 trailer, with DEGANZ members Peter Burger, Victoria Boult, and Emmett Skilton having directed this season. Fellow member David de Lautour’s new drama series, Ms. X, is out now with new episodes releasing every Monday.
Liv McClymont (DEGANZ) recently directed a new ad campaign celebrating the Warehouse’s long-lost Kiwi mascot, marking its return after a 20-year absence.
Meanwhile, directors Kim Webby and Mike Jonathan have teamed up for the new documentary series Whales, Rats & Kauri, with seven episodes now available to stream.
Series Directors: Peter Burger, Victoria Boult, and Emme Skilton
Season 2 of this crime thriller series is coming soon! Detective Anais Mallory (Chelsie Preston Crayford) returns to her hometown of Queenstown and faces startling homicides. She cracks cases while confronting personal ghosts from her past.
A suburban mum and her high school friend plot to frighten her unfaithful husband straight, but their scheme spirals into murder, trapping her between law enforcement, drug lords, and ruthless PTA mums.
Available to stream on ThreeNow, with new episodes dropping every Monday.
The Warehouse’s long-lost Kiwi mascot has returned in this ad campaign designed to unfold more like a drama series rather than a commercial. The five-part series available on YouTube, TikTok and TVNZ+, follows Kiwi as they wake up from a coma and navigate modern Aotearoa before eventually finding their way back to The Warehouse.
A young man learns the sacred rites of Māori whale harvests. But learning from Dad is as tough as the gruelling harvests for bone and oil that revive a traditional way of life.
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DEGANZ-Watchlist-13-Aug.png4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2026-08-13 13:28:312026-08-13 14:20:26DEGANZ Watch List: A Little Crime, Drama, and Documentary
From bold local storytelling and thought-provoking documentaries to standout commercials and binge-worthy television, this edition of the DEGANZ Watch List celebrates the latest work from our members across a range of formats.
Director Jamie Lawrence (DEGANZ) is behind Kiwibank’s newest and cutest mascot, Buck the sheep, while fellow member Liv McClymont directed the drama sequences for the NZ Herald’s six-part web series Under the Influence.
On the editing side, DEGANZ board member Martin Brinkler ACE edited Stories About My Body, a feature-length pro shot of Morgana O’Reilly’s hit comedy theatre show, blending live performance with newly filmed scenes. Meanwhile, assistant editor Megan Robinson (DEGANZ) worked on the latest season of the hit reality series The Traitors NZ.
Kiwibank’s newest campaign introduces a plucky sheep named Buck. While most sheep are happy following the flock, Buck chooses her own path and rejects the status quo.
In a tiny theatre in Aotearoa, New Zealand, four teenage stagehands work tirelessly to help Morgana tell the stories that shaped her – from her own teenagehood in 1998, to working foot-fetish parties in New York City, to falling in love and later birthing her babies in a Melbourne living room. By turns vulnerable and riotously funny, she moves from lamenting her chins to marvelling at her cellular functions, using her body as the living template for every tale she tells. Created and performed by Morgana O’Reilly (The White Lotus) and co-directed with her husband and real-life birth partner, 2025 BAFTA nominee Peter Salmon (After The Party), Stories About My Body blends nudity, heart-swelling honesty and real birth footage into a stand-up comedy special like no other – intimate, fearless and unexpectedly profound.
Stories About My Body is celebrating its NZ theatrical premiere with select special screenings before releasing to wider cinemas from 30 July. Find a screening new you here.
Hosted by Madeleine Sami, the hit psychological strategy game returns with more twists and betrayals. Follow the cast of 21 Kiwi players as they compete with their eyes on the rising prize money.
A compelling new six-part web series investigating the harm social media is doing to young people in Aotearoa and what parents and teens can do to fight back.
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/WatchList-16-July.png4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2026-07-16 14:55:342026-07-16 15:14:41DEGANZ Watch List: From Buck to Betrayal
This week, we’ve got a new crime drama series, the trailer for the highly anticipated feature doco Lomu, a new music video from a local artist, and a new factual tele-special!
DEGANZ member Max Currie leads the lineup with Bust Up, a fresh take on the buddy-cop crime genre, while Vea Mafile’o (DEGANZ) and co-director Gavin Fitzgerald’s Lomu offers an intimate portrait of one of the most iconic figures in rugby history ahead of its NZIFF premiere.
Director and editor Gwen Lin (DEGANZ) brings a distinctive visual style to local musician Lehali’s music video for her new electronic dance pop song ‘@kateshepp_1893.’ Meanwhile, fellow member Fa’alava’au Jeremiah Tauamiti’s tele special 400 Weddings and a Funeral, edited by Debbie Matthews (DEGANZ), celebrates the humour, heart and cultural significance of Pasifika ceremonies in Aotearoa.
A bold six-part one-hour crime drama, Bust Up puts a fresh spin on the buddy-cop genre: the two cops at the centre of the story are ex-lovers. Starring Morgana O’Reilly (The White Lotus, Housebound) and Roimata Fox (A Remarkable Place To Die, The Wrecking Crew), the series follows former romantic partners Deb Brighton and Mihi Renata, who are unexpectedly reunited after a decade apart and forced to work side‑by‑side as police officers in the small fictional town of Waitote, the garden gnome capital of Aotearoa. Together, the pair must navigate a series of crimes as bizarre as they are dangerous, and as the stakes escalate, so does the emotional tension, pushing Deb and Mihi to confront the unresolved feelings they’ve spent years trying to bury.
Ahead of its Aotearoa premiere in NZIFF as the festival’s centrepiece film, the trailer for feature documentary Lomu has been released. The film is a powerful and compelling portrait of the man behind the legend, Jonah Lomu, the most adored son of the Pacific, a legendary All Black, who transcended the game with his immense power and unstoppable determination.
Join hosts Bella Kalolo and Haanz Fa’avae-Jackson on a cultural deep dive into Pasifika weddings and funerals in Aotearoa! It’s packed with laughs, traditions, and insights from iconic Pasifika personalities.
This week’s DEGANZ Watch List celebrates the incredible work of our editor members, spotlighting a diverse line-up of projects spanning feature film, comedy, and emerging web series pilots.
Leading the list is Caterpillar, the highly anticipated directorial debut from Chelsie Preston-Crayford. Edited by DEGANZ member Jonno Woodford-Robinson (ANZSE), the local drama was released just ahead of Mother’s Day and has already generated a variety of positive reviews.
Also featured is the new comedy series New Zealand Spy from Paul Williams, with fellow member Nadia Darby serving as assistant editor on the production.
Rounding out the Watch List are three pilot episodes developed through PASC’s Episode One Redux (Ep1 Redux) programme. This is the second iteration of the Episode One Web Series Development and Pilot Production initiative originally launched in 2022. Designed to strengthen the presence of Pan-Asian creatives both on screen and behind the camera in Aotearoa, the programme aims to foster exciting new voices in local storytelling. The featured pilots showcase the work of editor DEGANZ members Jack Woon, Adam-Luka Turjak, and Sam Small.
Set in a run-down Wellington villa in 2003, Caterpillar follows three women living separate lives under one leaky roof. Sixteen-year-old Cassie is all bravado and vulnerability, drifting into risky territory as she searches for belonging. Her mother, Maxine, is a formidable single parent and filmmaker on the brink of a long-awaited breakthrough. Holding everything together is Huia, Cassie’s grandmother, whose life has been defined by quiet service to family and a private obsession with raising monarch caterpillars, dreaming of one day witnessing the legendary butterfly migration in Mexico.
Now in cinemas across Aotearoa! Find a screening near you here.
New Zealand’s newest spies – and the only three who applied – are tasked with protecting our nation from incoming threats, most notably those noisy neighbours in Australia. Starring Rose Matafeo, Paul Williams, Bret McKenzie and Joe Thomas.
When polar-opposite sisters are forced into a double wedding, sparring over their Chinese mother’s approval derails all plans – particularly as one is marrying a white man and the other, a woman!
Two codependent brothers are forced to support their family’s struggling crop-growing business, but their burning desire to forge their own paths throws their brotherhood into turmoil.
