Two of our very best Wifties are being celebrated on RNZ right now.
Sophie Lloyd was recently awarded the WIFT NZ Queenstown Camera Company Craft Award and is a highly skilled gaffer who has worked on TV series Crackhead and After The Party and films like Avatar: The Way of Water and Cousins.
In Went Up the Hill she assembled a fully female lighting crew in what remains a male-dominated profession.
Sophie has just wrapped up filming on season 2 of Red Rocks in Wellington and you can hear her interview on RNZ's Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan HERE
And acclaimed filmmaker and longtime Wiftie Dame Gaylene Preston's latest project GRACE: A Prayer for Peace is now available on rnz.co.nz/video. Alongside the feature-length documentary, the website will also host a series of vignettes made exclusively for RNZ, each exploring different themes from the film that follows artist Dame Robin White as she works and collaborates in Aotearoa, Japan and Kiribati.
GRACE: A Prayer for Peace is a visual poem that invites reflection on creativity and the human condition. Neither an artist profile nor a biopic, GRACE was devised by Dame Gaylene during rewarding conversations with the artist.
GRACE aims to not only illuminate and explore the visual art of Dame Robin White (Ngāti Awa), but to become its own artefact - a piece of collaborative art that frames a deeper engagement with the principles and poetics of her work.
Following the film’s sold-out premiere at the New Zealand International Film Festival and return screenings in several centres, it has also had a cinema release and toured 43 venues around Aotearoa. The film was the first New Zealand film to be selected for the Hiroshima International Film Festival and also opened the refurbished Hiroshima City Cinematographic and Audio-Visual Library in April, with screenings continuing until June.
RNZ Commissioning Manager Tim Burnell is excited to add the film to RNZ’s video platform which hosts more than 100 films and series available for New Zealanders to browse and enjoy.
“We’re proud of the broad range of programmes for New Zealanders to enjoy on rnz.co.nz/video including the highly awarded NZ Wars collection and the more recent Out of My League, as well as large scale documentaries that have had cinema releases like GRACE and The Haka Party Incident. We are also adding programmes such as Once Were Gardeners after their initial television broadcast, and series made by the RNZ team such as 30 with Guyon Espiner.
“It’s amazing to have this project from a filmmaking icon like Dame Gaylene to add to our collection of videos for New Zealanders to stream, especially with the extras that are available only via RNZ.”
GRACE: A Prayer for Peace is available to watch at rnz.co.nz/video from today, with a series of five vignettes, released monthly. Made with the support of NZ On Air and the New Zealand Film Commission.