NEWS | Interviews

A peeping Tom rom-com called How to Meet Girls From a Distance has won the Make My Movie competition. The Wellington film-making team ‘Traces of Nut’ will receive $100,000 to make a low budget feature, to premiere later this year.

"We’re absolutely chuffed to win the chance to make our movie," actor and writer Richard Falkner said today. Read More »

As part of The Big Idea’s celebration of ten years online, critic Mark Amery has brought together a discussion of those years in the visual arts from five leading visual arts practitioners - in response to his own thoughts.

In our final installment we hear from artist Lonnie Hutchinson. Read More »

As part of The Big Idea’s celebration of ten years online, critic Mark Amery has brought together a discussion of those years in the visual arts from five leading visual arts practitioners - in response to his own thoughts.

We’ve already heard from curator Reuben Friend and artists Judy Millar and Peter Madden. Today it's writer and curator Rob Garrett. Read More »

As part of The Big Idea’s celebration of ten years online, critic Mark Amery has brought together a discussion of those years in the visual arts from five leading visual arts practitioners - in response to his own thoughts.

We’ve already heard from curator Reuben Friend and artist Judy Millar. Today we welcome artist Peter Madden. Read More »

As part of The Big Idea’s celebration of ten years online, critic Mark Amery has brought together a discussion of those years in the visual arts from five leading visual arts practitioners - in response to his own thoughts.

On Friday we heard from artist Judy Millar. Today we welcome to the table Reuben Friend, curator of Maori and Pacific Art at City Gallery Wellington. Read More »

As part of The Big Idea’s celebration of ten years online, critic Mark Amery has brought together a discussion of those years in the visual arts from five leading visual arts practitioners in response to his own thoughts. First up is artist Judy Millar. Read More »

Cleo Barnett is using crowdfunding to join and raise awareness of Little Lotus, a collaborative art project linking artists with refugee children on the Thailand-Burma border.

Cleo tells us more about the project and how rather than taking a 'strategic approach' to fundraising, she just looked at what it would take to get herself to donate. Read More »

Make My Movie is a New Zealand competition to make a feature film, where the deadlines are tight and the budget is low. Dean Hewison and Richard Falkner from Traces of Nut have survived the initial cull from 757 entries to the final 12, with their stalking rom-com ‘How to Meet Girls From a Distance‘. Read More »

After selling her house to travel to North East India and film Roots on the Move, Serena Stevenson has turned to crowdfunding to distribute the documentary and create a ‘transmedia campaign’.

Serena shares her journey to make and fund the film and how she hopes it will end in a full circle – with funding going towards helping the Roots Music Festival return to the North East. Read More »

This week we hear from Dave Moskovitz, chairman of Webfund and MusicHype, a councillor for Internet NZ, and a organiser of Wellington Startup Weekend - on from November 4 to 6.

It's the first time the 54-hour marathon to cram technology venture creation into a business model has been held in Wellington. And it's not just for software developers. Dave tells us why 'Design' is a big part it. Read More »

It was meant to be the great 'Argument about the exportation of NZ film and TV' live at the Cloud on Auckland's Waterfront on Saturday.

But it was not to be - silenced by a last minute cancellation and noise from the 'RWC finals' (how do you have a serious/quirky panel discussion amongst rugby mad crowds?). Read More »

Three emerging to mid-career choreographers of Pacific Island descent have taken on the 2011 Pacific Dance Choreographic Laboratory; Ojeya Cruz Banks, Sesilia Pusiaki Tatuila and Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French.

Aaron Taouma from Pacific Dance New Zealand asked Ojeya Cruz Banks about how she got there and what she hopes to achieve in the lab. Read More »

2011 sees three emerging to mid-career choreographers of Pacific Island descent take on the Pacific Dance Choreographic Laboratory; Ojeya Cruz Banks, Sesilia Pusiaki Tatuila and Tepaer Read More »

2011 sees three emerging to mid-career choreographers of Pacific Island descent take on the Pacific Dance Choreographic Laboratory; Ojeya Cruz Banks, Sesilia Pusiaki Tatuila and Tepa Read More »

Sophie Kelly has taken over the helm of the Nelson Arts Festival as director this year after working with the team as programme director for six years.

Sophie tells us more about the role and highlights from the 17 day festival programme including the Nelson Masked Parade on Friday. “This is an event that really speaks about Nelson's community spirit and creativity.” Read More »

Robyn Gibson’s colourful sculptural installation event 'Art on the Street' hits Devonport during Art Week Auckland in October.

The event aims to bring art out into the open, making it accessible and show how art can enhance our environment. Read More »

Q opened its doors in August after a fifteen year journey, driven by the performing arts sector, to create an independent purpose built mid-sized performance venue in central Auckland.

Executive Producer James Wilson tells us how the first season will “stretch the legs of the building and start to show audiences the range of work that Q is capable of hosting.” Read More »

An interview with former Magnum Photos archive intern David Straight prior to his first solo exhibition, Still Here (Landscape of an Earthquake). He talks about photographing suburban Christchurch following the February 22 earthquake. Read More »

Jeff Clark talks to Steph Walker (General Manager) and Philip Tremewan (Festival Director) about putting the Christchurch Arts Festival together - and back together again – after the earthquakes. Read More »

Anna Dean is about to hit the road in a cinema on wheels, a travelling version of NZ On Screen container installations showcasing NZ film and TV on Auckland and Wellington waterfronts during the REAL New Zealand Festival.

Before Anna crams herself into a caravan for the sake of spreading NZ moving image culture, she talked to the brains behind the idea. Read More »

Illustrator Jem Yoshioka entered the Mix and Mash competition last year to experiment with creative commons content and create a dialogue around it through remixing. The result was her Supreme Remix winning work inspired by the Katherine Mansfield poem An Opal Dream Cave.

“The imagery and imagination in her work is so tangible and visual that it flowed very naturally into comic form.” Read More »

When Beulah Koale first hung up his rugby boots and stepped into a Massive Company theatre workshop, for a school holiday boredom buster, he was so shy he couldn’t talk to new people or look them in the eye.

Three years later he’s a workshop tutor, was part of Havoc in the Garden at Auckland Art Festival and had a lead role in the short film Manurewa. Read More »

Keneti Muaiava talks about his past, present and future as he prepares to show his Pacific Dance Artist in Residence work - based on moving from the codified movements of Samoan dance past and present and what it may look like in the future. Read More »

A physicist may seem like an unlikely person to address the creative sector forum, Survive & Thrive.

But as Professor Sir Paul Callaghan explains in this interview, scientific insights are creative acts and boosting our creativity is key to growing our ‘smart’ industries in NZ. Read More »

Sir James Wallace talks about the rewards of supporting the arts and his concerns that creative growth in NZ could be stymied, if the next generation of arts philanthropists don’t step-up. Read More »

Last year, Short+Sweet hit Auckland for the first time. This year, the festival of 10 minute plays promises an even juicier feast of dramatic writing and parading thespians.

Festival director Jonathan Hodge talks to Renee Liang about what's involved in putting on 40 plays in two weeks. Read More »

On the eve of the Walking with Dinosaurs visit to the Land of the Long White Cloud, Renee Liang talks to the man who does actually ‘walk with the dinosaurs’ – Dominic Rickhards, the English actor who embodies Huxley, a palaeontologist who is the only ‘live human’ on stage. Read More »

As the application deadline for the next ‘Pacific Dance Artist in Residence’ approaches, last year's recipient Justin Haiu relates some of his insights from the eight-week residency.

This interview by Aaron Taouma is the latest in a series of profiles from Pacific Dance New Zealand. Read More »

Painter, collaborator, community artist and co-organiser of First Thursdays Auckland – Meghan Geliza is an energetic part of Auckland’s thriving visual arts scene.  She took some time out from preparing for her first solo show to chat with Renee Liang. Read More »

Third generation puppeteer Annie Forbes talks about the people and practice behind the magical world of Boxes.  The play about friendship and diversity uses puppetry, sound and of course boxes, to create a witty and entrancing tale of Elton (performed by Annie) and Bernie (Tim Denton). Read More »