DEGANZ Members win at New York Festivals Film & TV Awards

Congratulations to DEGANZ members Jesse Griffin, Jackie Van Beek, Caroline Bell Booth, David de Lautour, and Kerri Roggio for their successes at the 2023 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards!

Three episodes of Educators Season 3, co-written by and starring Jackie with Jesse as director, brings home the Silver Medal in the Best Streaming Comedy category. This season of the improvised comedy, aired in December 2022, is full of more characters’ mischief and actors’ unscripted gems. Like the previous two seasons, it follows the utterly inept teachers’ struggles while working at a secondary school. The show’s classic Kiwi humour has made it a fan favourite, earning positive reviews and various accolades, including the 2020 New York Festivals’ Bronze World Medal in the same category.

Meanwhile, season 8 of The Brokenwood Mysteries earned the Bronze Medal as the Best Crime Drama, with episodes directed by David and Caroline each and episode 4 edited by Kerri. While a completely different genre, it’s also earned its spot as a favourite and Kiwi classic. The new season continues following Detective Mike Shepherd as he digs deeper into his past and the unprecedented crimes of Brokenwood. Now, with the help of Detective Kristine Sims, they investigate more mysterious crimes at a museum, a musical festival, Pateke Point, and much more.

Both series are available to stream on TVNZ+ now! Catch up with the West Auckland school shenanigans or delve in to uncover what else the citizens of Brokenwood are hiding.

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PASC Episode One Pilots Fly to (the) Hollywood (Avondale)

Episode One participants, Shuchi Kothari, and Dale Corlett stand in front of a red curtain and PASC banner

PASC’s Episode One Web Series Pilot Programme, featuring many DEGANZ members, finally came to fruition at the Hollywood Avondale cinema.

After a year of developing and producing their pilot episodes, the teams pitched to industry commissioners and programmers in hopes of earning support to complete their series. A celebratory evening followed as the creatives shared their hard work with their families, casts, crews, and wider industry practitioners.

Of the five projects, four had DEGANZ members at the helm as both directors and editors. See the list below!

Asian 8

Outraged by the racism at her posh private girls’ school, an ambitious Year 12 student rallies fellow Asian students to support her bid for Head Girl in exchange for finding them dates to the ball.

Director: Nahyeon Lee (Incubator 2021)

Editor: Jack Woon

Boom Shankar

When an overconfident bomb defusal officer and an anxious dairy owner end up dead after a failed bomb defusal, they must work together to navigate the bureaucratic Afterlife for one last chance at redemption.

Director: Bala Murali Shingade

Pincher

Recreational porch pirate, Mei, is an all-around terrible person but also an avid denier of her failings in character. While her personal and work lives spiral into chaos, she embarks on a journey of moral redemption, revisiting past victims to return a stolen urn.

Director: Pon Torthienchai

Editor: Jolin Lee (Incubator 2022)

Thaw

A science fiction anthology drama that follows six individuals who have woken from a cryonically frozen state as they grapple with their rehabilitation into the world and attempt to connect with those they left behind.

Writer/Director: Asuka Sylvia (Incubator 2018)

Editor: Dan Kircher

 

We can’t wait to see what new horizons this opens for our members and hope to see the completed series in the future!

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Fighting with ‘Stylebender’ at Tribeca Film Festival

Israel Adesanya lays with eyes closed in a bath sprinkled with flower petals

Stylebender, directed by DEGANZ Incubator alum Zoe McIntosh, will premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. Out of the 28 documentaries in the programme, this is one of the 19 female-directed features.

Zoe, well known for her work on Netflix’s docu-series Dark Tourist and her short The World in Your Window, strikes again with this moving and inspirational story. The film follows Israel ‘The Last Stylebender’ Adesanya, a Nigerian-born New Zealand-based MMA fighter and recent UFC middleweight champ, through his tumultuous life and career path.

Israel reveals his internal struggles of trying to become the man he has always wanted to be despite his demons. Through the healing power of dance, Zoe and Israel explore themes of masculinity, mental health, and the consequences of bullying. With production starting in 2018, before Israel’s rise to fame, his personal and career growth unravel right before the lens.

In a statement to NZFC, Zoe shares:

My goal was always to get under the gloss and hype to unlock the poetry, emotion, and contradictions inherent in Israel. I wanted to make a film that spoke not only to MMA fans but to a wider audience who would connect with Israel’s authenticity and the importance of being your own ‘freaky’ self.

Tribeca Film Festival is an annual event founded by Robert De Niro, featuring about 600 screenings. Zoe will attend the festival with support from the New Zealand Film Commission.

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‘Ahikāroa’ is Keeping it Lit

Web series Ahikāroa is back for season five with great kudos to DEGANZ member Onehou Strickland. This season Onehou worked as an editor, writer, storyliner, and script editor. She first began working on the show in season 2 as assistant editor and storyliner and has since become increasingly involved with each season, adding additional credits to her name. Additionally, fellow member Maza White worked as first and second AD this season.

The show is a bilingual drama series that follows the lives of a group of city-based rangatahi. This season continues to explore the complex and intertwined character relationships, highlighting the strength of the ensemble cast and the writing team.

Since the show’s inception in 2018, it has gone on to gain great success and following. In 2021, the series won multiple awards at the NZWebFest, including Best Show (NZ Narrative). In 2022, Ahikāroa also earned itself Best NZ Trailer and Best Director (NZ Narrative).

Congrats to Onehou for all the hard work that paid off on this series.

Watch season five here.

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‘My Cyclone Gabrielle’: Confronting the Aftermath

In the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle sweeping across Aotearoa communities, multiple DEGANZ members worked on the new RNZ docuseries, My Cyclone Gabrielle. With a new director, location, and story in each episode, they share their personal experience and give voice to the residents’ tragedies. The four episodes look at the cyclone from a community perspective and depict their struggles and bravery.

The first episode, Aftermath, edited by DEGANZ member Jai Waite, tells the story of Hawke’s Bay families picking up the pieces of their lives after the destruction. The families reunite on the region’s ruins and share their pain with viewers.

The final episode, Lifeline, featured Kim Webby (DEGANZ) as director and fellow member Ben Murray as assistant editor. It depicts a hard-working community of Ruatoria, supporting each other and fearing a lack of governmental support. The other episodes examine similar themes of loss and grief in Muriwai and the Waitakere Ranges.

All four stories are different, isolated in their personal losses but united in their communal pain. The series reveals previously unheard voices and shows what is hard to ignore. It forces viewers to re-evaluate their perceptions of the cyclone and be motivated to address the existing restoration challenges.

You can watch the full series here.

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