Dame Gaylene Preston, Director/ Writer/ Producer
Dame Gaylene Preston is a national treasure,
with an exceptional career over more than three decades. An
innovative writer, director, and producer, Gaylene has insisted
that it is possible to live in New Zealand and contribute New
Zealand stories to global cinema, and her award-winning works have
screened at most key international film festivals, including
Venice, Sundance, Toronto and London; and extensively at the New
Zealand International Film Festival and Sydney, Melbourne and
Canberra among many more including Cannes Cinéma Des Antipodes.
Her work includes Mr Wrong, Ruby and Rata,
Bread & Roses, War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us, Perfect
Strangers, Home By Christmas, Hope and Wire, My Year With
Helen.
Dame Gaylene has served on most industry boards
including the New Zealand Film Commission and New Zealand On Air,
and has chaired Creative New Zealand's Film Innovation Fund and the
New Zealand Film and Television Awards Society. Gaylene has twice
been the mentor director for the Canadian Women In The Director's
Chair programme. The first female director's scholarship funded by
the New Zealand Film Commission was named in her honour. After five
years on the board, Preston Chaired the Governors of the NZ Arts
Foundation.
`Her generosity of spirit and her powerful
mentorship and advocacy skills have been central to the development
of New Zealand's contemporary filmmaking community. Her executive
producer credits include many award winning films, such as Annie
Goldson's Punitive Damage, Brita McVeigh's Coffee, Tea
or Me? Michelle Savill's Ellen is Leaving and Paora
Joseph's Tatarakihi - The Children of Parihaka.
In 2001 Gaylene was the first filmmaker to
receive an Arts Foundation Laureate Award and in 2002 she was made
an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit for services to the film
industry. In 2010 she received the inaugural lifetime achievement
award for outstanding contribution to documentary from Documentary
Edge. She also received a Screenwriters Mentorship Award and a WIFT
NZ Award for outstanding contribution to the New Zealand Screen
Industry. In 2016 she was awarded the SPADA Industry Champion Award
and a NZ Women of Influence Award for Arts & Culture and in
2017 she was given the Premium Moa Award for services to cinema and
the Lia Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stranger with My Face
Tasmanian Film Festival for her contribution to global women's
genre storytelling.
Her most recent film, My Year With
Helen was awarded best documentary feature and Preston, Best
Director (factual) at the NZ Film Awards 2019. In 2018 she was
invited to be a Visiting Scholar/Resident at Jesus College,
Cambridge UK.
In 2019 Gaylene was honoured to become a Dame
Companion of the New Zealand Order Of Merit.
View Gaylene Preston's membership profile.