Friday
08
Aug
2025
Meet the Filmmakers: Lesbian Space Princess

Meet the Filmmakers: Lesbian Space Princess

Posted Tuesday 29 Jul 2025

Meet the Filmmakers – Leela Varghese and Emma Hough Hobbs: Lesbian Space Princess - Auckland

Join WIFT NZ for an informal pre-screening gathering to welcome our two Australian new friends before you see their award-winning film. 

Leela Varghese
Leela Varghese (she/her) is a writer/director known for telling joyful, impactful stories. Her debut feature Lesbian Space Princess won the 2025 Berlinale Teddy Award. Her short I'm the Most Racist Person I Know premiered at SXSW 2025, where it won the Special Jury Award.

Emma Hough Hobbs 
Emma Hough Hobbs (she/they) is a queer filmmaker, animator, and production designer from Adelaide. She co-wrote/co-directed the Teddy Award-winning Lesbian Space Princess (Berlinale 2025). Her short On Film screened at SXSW Sydney 2023 and won Best Animation at the SA Screen Awards.

Cash bar. Nibbles provided. Booking is essential. Register for Pre-Screening Meet the Filmmakers. Free to members and non-members.

🎟️ Tickets for Lesbian Space Princess screening

Date: Friday 08 Aug 2025
Location: Goblin, 134 Ponsonby Road, Ponsonby – walking distance to the Civic!
Time: 6.30PM – 8.30PM

Friday
08
Aug
2025

Upcoming events...

Wednesday 21 Oct 2026

In Conversation With: Cathy Garcia-Sampana

You may have missed her at the Big Screen Symposium this year, but in our eyes, she was the hidden gem of the conference.

Cathy Garcia-Sampana is one of the most successful filmmakers in the Phillipines. Her films have been the highest-grossing Filipino film of the year on nine occasions, and on six occasions have been the highest-grossing Filipino film of all time (Wikipedia). And with all of that, she spends a half of her time in Aotearoa!

Across a career spanning more than three decades and closely associated with ABS-CBN and its film studio Star Cinema, she has directed some of the most successful and widely watched productions in Philippine screen history. Her credits include One More Chance (2017), The Hows of Us (2018) Hello, Love, Goodbye (2019) and Hello, Love, Again (2024). The themes that are present through her work are family, navigating love, ambition, migration, and personal reinvention.

WIFT & PASC are delighted to have Cathy speak to us about her journey as a filmmaker, working within her values, and how the screen industry in Asia is vastly different from ours.

The session will be moderated by Marc Laureano.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

Drinks & nibbles provided.

FREE for WIFT & PASC Members | $20 for non-members

Wednesday 21 Oct 2026

Understanding the Archive

What happens to your film after delivery? Ngā Taonga has the answer.

Delivery isn't the end of your film's story. If the New Zealand Film Commission has funded your film, you're required to deposit it with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, Aotearoa's audiovisual archive. Most filmmakers tick that box and move on, but knowing how the archive works can make a real difference to your film's future.

Here's why:
Ngā Taonga preserves and catalogues your material, and when someone wants to screen it or access it, they send that request on to you as the rights holder. Nothing is released without your say. As the years go by, that becomes more and more valuable, whether it's a festival programmer, a researcher or a retrospective curator looking for your work.

So, who are they?
Ngā Taonga holds more than 800,000 audiovisual items dating back to 1894, and cares for the collections of the NZ Film Commission, Te Māngai Pāho, RNZ, TVNZ and much of NZ On Air's funded content, alongside material from Whakaata Māori, the Waitangi Tribunal and many other public and private collections. It's where our screen history lives, and where your work will sit alongside it.

As a filmmaker, it is essential that you know how to make sure your film materials are preserved and archived properly, so your work stays discoverable for generations to come.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK

Free for WIFT Members, $20 for non-members. Drinks & nibbles provided.

Programme is brought to you with generous support from the NZ Film Commission and Foundation North.