Recent Production Funding Decisions
Feature Film Production Investment
At the August 2023 Board Meeting, the NZFC Board approved conditional offers of funding to one new feature film and additional equity to one feature film.
Lomu (Documentary)
Logline: Experience the unstoppable force of Jonah Lomu, the greatest rugby player to walk the planet, whose indomitable spirit reshaped the game forever.
Producers: Emma Slade, Victoria Dabbs, Victoria Barrell, Simon Lazenby
Executive Producers: Leela Menon, Desray Armstrong, Fraser Brown
Director: Vea Mafile’o, Gavin Fitzgerald
Writers: Vea Mafile’o, Gavin Fitzgerald
Additional equity investment
Moss & Freud (Feature Drama)
Logline: Over a period of nine months, supermodel Kate Moss sits for a portrait by acclaimed artist, Lucian Freud, who are both transformed by the challenging experience of discovery.
Producer: Matthew Metcalfe
Co-producers: Tom Blackwell, Lesley Hansen
Executive Producer: Kate Moss
Director: James Lucas
Writer: James Lucas
Extended Screen Production Recovery Fund
The NZFC approved grant funding to four new applications:
Blessing| $4,286
(Short Film)
Producers: Sarah Cook, Jimena Murray
Director: Jane Shearer
Lead Writer: Jane Shearer, Steve Ayson
Womb | $10,000
(Short Film)
Producer: Amanda Jane Robinson
Writer/Director: Kyrah Hetaraka
Creamerie Season 2 | $29,333
(Series Drama)
Producers: Bronwynn Bakker, JJ Fong, Perlina Lau, Ally Xue, Roseanne Liang
Director: Roseanne Liang
Writers: Roseanne Liang, Dan Musgrove
Bookworm | $85,986
(Feature Film)
Producers: Emma Slade, Roxi Bull, Victoria Dabbs
Director: Ant Timpson
Writer: Toby Harvard
Premium Contingency Fund
The NZFC Board approved conditional equity to one application:
Far North (Series Drama)
Producers: Kelly Martin, Sally Campbell
Director: David White
Writers: David White, Mingjian Cui, Suli Moa
Recent Development Funding Decisions
Early Development & Documentary Development Funding
Childish (Drama) | $25,000
When a wealthy doctor suffers a serious stroke, the perfect lives of his wife and entitled adult children are turned upside down. But when they discover he has a secret family, all hell breaks loose.
Producer: Rachel Jean
Writer: Jesse Griffin
Director: Jesse Griffin
New Zealand Ninja (Drama) | $25,000
This is the wild, unbelievable, hilariously true story of a lonely self-styled teenage Ninja who recruited his only friends to form a terrorist organisation that committed burglaries, robbed banks, and attempted to assassinate the Queen.
Producer: Orlando Stewart
Writer: Brian Challis
Where the River Runs (Drama) | $25,000
Charleston, Otago. 1884. Two desperate worlds collide when a grieving widow and a young pregnant girl are flung together in their fight to stay alive.
Producer: Morgan Leigh Stewart
Writer: Jodie Hillock
Tandem (Drama) | $25,000
Struggling to accept the disability that detonated her Olympic dream, an ambitious low-vision cyclist finds a tandem pilot to steer her to victory, but their co-dependent relationship soon veers violently off-course.
Producer: Alex Reed
Writer: Pennie Hunt
Director: Pennie Hunt
Grace (Documentary) | $20,000
The fine art of female creative collaboration in a time of global crisis. From across the hungry seas, a group of artists revolutionise ancient traditions to make a place to stand against the rising tide.
Producer: Dame Gaylene Preston, Susana Lei'ataua, Catherine Madigan
Director: Dame Gaylene Preston
Project Baby (Documentary) | $20,000
A transgender woman donates sperm frozen a decade earlier to a lesbian couple. As the trio navigates their high-stakes IVF journey they contemplate sexuality, gender, friendship, love and the transformative power of chosen family.
Producer: Kay Ellmers, Polly Fryer
Director: Parehuia MacKay
Hāpaitia Te Kaupapa Kiriata - Māori Development Funding
Don Te Haute (Drama) | $25,000
Deported from the only country he's ever known, an ex-con and his hapless friend are sent to their birthplace, a foreign land they've never called home. With wit, determination and the Police hot on their trail, they set out to meet Jacinda Ardern and change their fate.
Producer: Kirk Torrance
Writer: Kirk Torrance
The Tohunga : Origin (Drama) | $25,000
Deadlines
Production and Development Deadlines 2024
Feature Film Production Investment and Feature Film Post Production Investment
1pm Monday 9 October 2023
Board Meeting 12 December 2023
1pm Monday 27 November 2023
Board Meeting 14/15 February 2024
1pm Monday 5 February 2024
Board Meeting 9/10 April 2024
1pm Tuesday 2 April 2024
Board Meeting 12/13 June 2024
1pm Tuesday 4 June 2024
Board Meeting 13/14 August 2024
1pm Monday 5 August 2024
Board Meeting 16/17 October 2024
1pm Monday 7 October 2024
Board Meeting 9/10 December 2024
Early Development Fund and Documentary Development Fund
1pm Monday 16 October 2023
Producer Notification Monday 11 December 2023
1pm Monday 15 January 2024
Producer Notification 11 March 2024
1pm Monday 18 March 2024
Producer Notification 13 May 2024
1pm Monday 20 May 2024
Producer Notification 15 July 2024
1pm Monday 22 July 2024
Producer Notification 16 September 2024
1pm Monday 23 September 2024
Producer Notification 18 November 2024
Extended Screen Production Recovery Fund
The Extended Screen Production Recovery Fund closed to new applications on 31 July 2023.
Premium Contingency Fund
The Premium Contingency Fund closed to new applications on 31 July 2023.
The current round of Early Development and Documentary Development Funding will be announced on 2 October.