It's great to be able to share good news from the WIFT NZ office in these interesting times!
The NZ Film Commission has kindly supported our latest endeavours, one of which is a reprise of a successful programme we ran in 2019, and the other – something completely new!
We are back with a second Emerging Producers’ Intensive, led by Sue Maslin with Charlotte Seymour. The first of these was extremely successful, with 20 producers developing their skills and the majority working flat out ever since. The call for applications for the new course will be out in September. We present this programme in association with our friends at SPADA.
Something new – a Moana Pasifika Women Writers programme. The transition from short film to feature film is one of the most challenging bridges to cross for any filmmaker. However, for Moana Pasifika women or gender diverse filmmakers it is even more difficult. In Aotearoa New Zealand, although Pasifika peoples make up 8.1% of the population, there have only been two fictional feature films (one of which is a portmanteau) written by Moana Pasifika females. The funding we have received is for a 16-week programme for Moana Pasifika women tracking towards working as feature film screenwriters. We present this course in association with more friends at PISA (Pacific Island Screen Artists).
And there’s more! To give me a little more time to work on the gender pay gap, we now have Marina Alofagia McCartney on board for a few weeks a year as Programme Consultant, again with thanks to the NZFC.