Wellywood Woman

  I always enjoy this image that accompanied Variety 's announcement of NZ's new International Co-Development Fund, because, thanks to Bluestocking Series, I produced the Complex Female Protagonist cap that Jane Campion wears here!   Some good news this week. A relief to write about, after my recent dense essays that explore continued  risks to the safety of New Zealand women who make films; our taxpayer over-investment in international projects that white men write and direct; and under-investment in the distribution and marketing of films that New Zealand women write and direct; and new and  inequitable  taxpayer-funded creative worker research that may be used by policy-makers.  Whew. Individually, these good news announcements don't mean much. But collectively, they may signal that – at last – that women writers and directors are not 'exceptional' in taxpayer-funded projects here. And some of them have established a new, local, ‘normal’ w...

This is the final part of a 4-Part NZ Update series and is easier to read over on Medium . Part 1 was Gender Breakthrough in New Zealand Film Commission Funding . Part 2 was a letter to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Women, Paula Bennett , about the New Zealand Screen Production Grant. Part 3: WIFTNZ . New Zealand women who write and direct long-form screen works – many of them also actors – are blossoming. Five years ago, if I created this kind of list, I would have been confident that I included most of them. And because there were so few women whose work reached cinemas I also found it straightforward to offer to interview them all. Those things are no longer true. It was a fine moment when I realised I could (just about) do an A-Z of those I do know about. A less fine moment when I realised that it would take me all year to make it comprehensive: I haven't got enough time to do that. So how did I compile this list? It's arbitrary and a little random. I tho...