We're celebrating the success of director Lauren Porteous, producer Greg Smith and the Cool Story Bro team, at this year's HP48HOURS filmmaking competition. Their film, Under The Bridge, was crowned Grand Champion and Porteous won both of the directing awards - Best Director and the Gaylene Preston/WIFT Award for Best Female Director. Actor-turned-director Porteous won the Best Female Director Award last year with The Morning After, and last month she won the Show Me Shorts best screenplay award for Motel. And we'll just highlight again the fact that women took out the Best Director awards in three of the eight regions in this competition this year - Auckland (Lauren Porteous), Taranaki (Brittany Baker) and Bay of Plenty (Keisha McDonald).
Image: Gaylene Preston (left) and Lauren Porteous