DEGANZ members heavily populated the selection lineup this year, with many of their projects going on to win awards. Well done to all members involved, and congratulations to the winners!
Best Music Video, NZ
Don’t Expect the World
Director & Editor: Joe Murdie
Best Performance, NZ Short Fiction
Romain Mereau – Solitaire
Writer/Director: Brian Gill
NZ Web Series
Best Trailer
Ahikāroa
Series Editor, Writer, Storyliner, & Script Editor: Onehou Strickland
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/NZWF-Winners.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2023-11-17 11:31:112023-11-23 14:42:15… and We Have the (NZ Web Fest) Winners!
NZ Web Fest was created in 2015 to celebrate web series and online video content. Over the years, the festival has evolved and was accepted as a participating festival in the Web Series World Cup in 2017 and expanded to include podcasts in 2022. The festival will occur online this November.
Amelia Merton takes a seemingly casual walk in the wilderness. The innocent and carefree nature of the walk is juxtaposed with the dark secret of the protagonist’s actions, creating a dramatic and unexpected ending.
Joel is about to walk into a small graduation party he’s having with some friends when he gets the phone call telling him that his best friend, Terry, has died.
Editor: Max Helbick
* Nominated for Best Student Film, NZ Short Fiction
We’ve all been there. The nervousness, the pressure. Making. That. First. Impression. Set in a lush beautiful cafe on the perimeter of Auckland City, an awkward journalist’s first date is upended by a man spotted in the cafe window.
Writer/Director, Producer, & Editor: James Fink-Jensen
* Nominated for Best Writing, NZ Short Fiction & Best Performance, NZ Short Fiction (x2)
Freya Daly Sadgrove is an emerging New Zealand poet, riding the success of her collection Head Girl — but acutely aware that something has to come next. With her multi-poet show Show Ponies, she’s determined to jam together poetry, punk, sex, sizzle, and theatre, shaking poetry performance loose from its conventions. But not everyone is supportive of her unconventional ideas.
Drag Icon Misty Frequency’s kaupapa is to celebrate Autistic and Takatāpui excellence. They are looking to storm the stage at the Drag Wars competition with a cash prize up for grabs.
Director: Justin Scott
Editor: Brendon Chan
Assistant Editor: Laura McBeath
* Nominated for Best Directing, Short Documentary & Best Film, Short Documentary
Follow a crazy group of city-based rangatahi, they’re young, kura kaupapa raised and dangerously onto it. Their world orbits around getting cash, cutting corners, and charging their phones.
You’re invited to Misha, Rāwhiti, Poe Tiare, Alison, and Tristan’s 21sts, getting a snapshot of what it looks like to become an adult across different walks of life in Aotearoa.
Pan-Asian New Zealanders tell stories from their love lives on their own terms, from situationships and mediocre hookups to devastating breakups and complicated emotional needs.
A partly animated doco series about resilience and anxiety, Fight or Flight interviewed 12 young people about their challenges with anxiety or depression.
A look at homelessness from the inside. A colourful, diverse, harsh, and often tragic world of the people living on and around Auckland’s Karangahape Road.
Following the 2020 Covid travel restrictions, No Place Like Home follows six couples as they return to New Zealand after those years spent abroad to rebuild their lives, often from scratch. Their stories are in turn uplifting, challenging, heart-breaking, and joyful.
A docu-series that tries to figure out what’s going on with young people post-2020 f**kery. How do Aotearoa’s rangitahi feel about “these unprecedented times”? Do we fixate on the demise of civilization every night before bed? More importantly, what do we care about? Seventeen participants spread across seven small towns and one big town make up this intimate, funny, and thoughtful series.
An eight-part web series, that tells the stories of transgender Kiwis from their late 70s to early 20s, documenting the history of trans experience in New Zealand and dispelling stereotypes about who trans people are.
Drag Icon Misty Frequency’s kaupapa is to celebrate Autistic and Takatāpui excellence. They are looking to storm the stage at the Drag Wars competition with a cash prize up for grabs.
Editor: Brendon Chan
Assistant Editor: Laura McBeath
* Nominated for Best Directing, Short Documentary & Best Film, Short Documentary
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/NZ-WebFest-2023.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2023-10-09 13:28:202023-10-12 10:41:36Best of the Best at NZ WebFest
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.
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Ahikaroa.jpg4561200admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2023-04-13 13:42:412023-04-13 18:16:44‘Ahikāroa’ is Keeping it Lit
The winners for the 2022 NZ Web Fest Awards were announced earlier in the week, with DEGANZ members Michelle Ang and Julie Zhu walking away with awards!
Michelle Ang took away an award for Best Director – NZ Factual for her work on Hair Now which also won the award for Best Show – NZ Factual. For her work on Self Help, which won Best Show NZ Narrative and Best Ensemble NZ Narrative, Michelle took home the award for Best Director NZ Narrative alongside Rawiri Jobe. With her two directing awards, Michelle’s win marked the first time someone has won awards for their work on factual and narrative shows in the same year at NZ Web Fest. Both shows are free to watch online.
For her work on Takeout Kids, Julie Zhu was a joint winner of Best Director – NZ Factual together with Michelle. All five episodes of Takeout Kids are available to watch on The Spinoff website.
Our congratulations goes to the DEGANZ members whose work featured among the finalists for the 2021 NZ Web Fest Awards.
Taking out the award for Best NZ Pitch was Léah McVeagh (DEGANZ) for her pitch I Choose. Another special shout out to the runner up of that prize category, which went to fellow member Taylor Nixon for his pitch Roadie.
The five-part documentary series 100 Year Forecast, edited by Ben Chesters (DEGANZ) received a Special Mention under the Best Show – NZ Factual category. The Spinoff produced the online series, which explores the implications of climate change for Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as discussing potential action moving forward.
This year’s list of #NZWF21 award nominees also included other work from our members. Rachale Davies’The Collective was a nominee for the Best Show – NZ Factual Award. Meanwhile, under the Best Pilot (NZ) category, both Anton Steel’sChloe and the Crash Test and Samuel Shelton’sThe Handy Circle were finalists.
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/100_year_forecast_845x321-header.jpg321845admin/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.pngadmin2021-11-18 08:21:142021-11-18 08:21:14Members Featured in 2021 NZ Web Fest Awards
