Wellywood Woman

Gardening With Soul has just gone into New Zealand cinemas. Jess Feast’s doco about Sister Loyola Galvin is a beautiful story about a nun in her nineties, a member of the remarkable Sisters of Compassion Order, founded by  Mother Suzanne Aubert (1835-1926) , who work ‘in a spirit of compassion, openness and integrity to meet the needs of the aged, the sick, the oppressed and the powerless in our communities’.    Gardening With Soul follows last year's How Far is Heaven , also about the order, directed by Christopher Prior and Miriam Smith. To celebrate  Gardening With Soul , I decided to interview its editor, Annie Collins. Annie’s a legend. She’s worked on every kind of project imaginable: many features (including New Zealand classics from Sleeping Dogs and Goodbye Pork Pie , to Scarfies and Out of the Blue – Best Editing Awards for both as well as for last year’s Two Little Boys – to Lord of the Rings and this year’s Shopping ); countless docos (a special love); sh

The New Zealand Film Commission has green lit sixteen short films, eight in the Fresh 10 group ($10,000 budget) and eight in the Fresh 30 ($30,000 budget). Great to see that half have women writer/directors, many congratulations to them all!  The notes are via the NZFC, where the selection panel included: Chris Dudman (Director), Tina Cleary (Casting Director), Daniel Joseph Borgman (Writer/Director), Bonnie Slater (NZFC Professional Development Executive), Briar Grace-Smith (NZFC Development Executive) and Lisa Chatfield (NZFC Short Film Manager).  Here are the stats, thanks to Lisa Chatfield and Chantelle Burgoyne: Fresh 10: There were 45 women directors across 149 submissions – 30.2% and women directors were attached to 31% of the shortlisted projects.  Fresh 30: There were 25 women directors across 86 submissions – 29.1% and women were attached to 29% of the short-listed projects.  There were a few instances of co-directing teams.  Five documentaries were submitte