Wellywood Woman

There was a panel called 'Directing the Dead 2' today, at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW). It included Scott Weinberg, James Wan, Simon Rumley, Ben Wheatley, Jason Eisener, Nicolas Goldbart. And one woman, Emily Hagins. And WHAT a woman she is. Emily Hagins is 18 and has made three features. My Sucky Teen Romance is premiering today at SXSW ('today' around the world goes on rather a long time, as you know). Anyway, I was up early, and fell across a live twitter feed from Scott Macaulay, @FilmmakerMag. And laughed, several times. I loved it that Scott's few tweets managed immediately to capture/attract so many of the different points of view about a complex issue. What a great way to start the day, some light relief from the real-life horror stories of Japan. (I can't get this image out of my head, dream about it. Long to help. Hope that over time there will be plenty of opportunities to do so.) Japanese tsunami March 2011 (from Stuff ) I e...

Development : Viv (Madeline McNamara) & Greta (Pinky Agnew) outside the New World supermarket in Chaffers Street Wellington In the world of media convergence, collaboration with brands has become more important than ever to filmmakers. However, even though women account for 85% of all consumer purchases in the United States , and probably elsewhere, individual women storytellers whose work is about women and for women audiences rarely benefit from partnerships with brands. Illeana Douglas' relationship with Ikea in her Easy to Assemble web series is an exception. Development -the-movie has benefited significantly from relationships with various community and commercial entities (see Development Project FAQ tab above) and I’d welcome more partnerships, so I’m very interested in branded entertainment. Because of this interest, I had this little Twitter exchange with MOFILM , an organisation which offers competitions and mobile distribution to budding filmmakers around th...

I love Roseanne Liang’s award-winning documentary Banana in a Nutshell and her short film Take 3 , (which won awards at the Berlin and Valladolid film festivals). They're sharp and funny. And they inspired some great responses from Tze Ming Mok in her Yellow Peril blog , and in Lumiere ; like Banana in a Nutshell , these responses appealed to my autoethnographic side, and made me think. So I’m thrilled that Roseanne’s first feature will be released in New Zealand on 17 March. It’s a rom-com called My Wedding and Other Secrets and it’s based on true events – the events that were documented in Banana in a Nutshell . It stars Michelle Ang, Matt Whelan, Cheng Pei Pei and Kenneth Tsang. Roseanne Liang at work Roseanne is a New Zealand Chinese writer and director, in her early thirties. She has a Masters in Creative and Performing Arts from the University of Auckland, has won the SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year and WIFTNZ Woman to Watch awards, and is a Script to Screen Bo...