Please, Darling - it’s double the celebrations!

2nd October 2007

Please, Darling - it’s double the celebrations!

“Please Vote For Me” and “Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story” were the big winners at last night’s DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival Awards picking up two awards each. International and local documentary film-makers competed for over $33,000 worth of prizes in Australasia’s largest documentary film festival and competition.

Amidst the celebrations, DOCNZ co-director Ewa Bigio reflected on a more serious note by asking funding bodies to look more closely into the current documentary funding infra structure, the role of the documentary film-maker here in New Zealand and the high level of frustration that local documentary film-makers are experiencing with the funding process.

Co-director Alex Lee in thanking the film-makers, partners and volunteers in bringing DOCNZ challenged the government bodies and funding agencies to accord arts and cultural organizations with more respect by not expecting organizations like DOCNZ to rely on the goodwill and meagre resources to sustain a world class professional arts and cultural organization

New Zealander Julian Shaw’s account of South African political satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys picked up the St. Laurence Best NZ Medium award and scooped the DOCNZ Best Emerging Film-maker award, with judges praising the content matter Shaw brought to screens with his documentary. “It’s a well made, beautifully realized production from a young, emerging film-maker whose next works we look forward to seeing in the years to come” one judge noted.

Weijun Chen’s “Please Vote For Me”, a classic election nail-biter set in a third grade classroom in China, picked up the “International Competition – Medium Feature’ award and the Screenrights Best Educational Film. The medium feature category was a hotly contested prize, however, with judges indicating the high calibre of films made it a difficult choice to make. “My Daughter the Terrorist” received a ‘Special Mention’, the highest commendation possible.

Other award winners included the dysfunctional family values story “Knee Deep”, New Zealander Justin Pemberton’s topical “The Nuclear Comeback” and budding film-makers Zoe McIntosh and Janette Howe receiving the Best Pitch and Carole Dean Grant awards respectively.

The winners in full:

DOCNZ Best International Feature: Knee Deep (Michael Chandler, USA)
Special Mention: Terra Incognito (Maria Finitzo, USA)
DOCNZ Best International Medium: Please Vote For Me (Weijun Chen, South Africa)
Special Mention: My Daughter the Terrorist (Beate Arnestad, Norway)
DOCNZ Best International Short: A Summer Not to Forget (Carol Mansour, Lebanon)
Special Mention: Wittenoom (Caro MacDonald, Australia)

St Laurence Best NZ Feature: The Nuclear Comeback (Justin Pemberton)
St. Laurence Best NZ Medium: Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story (Julian Shaw)
The Documentary Channel Best NZ Short: In the Night Kitchen (Simon Burgin)

Screenrights Best Educational Film: Please Vote For Me
DOCNZ Best Emerging Film-maker: Julian Shaw (Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story)
Best Pitch: Zoe McIntosh (Lost in Wonderland)
Carole Dean Grant: Janette Howe (The Art of Being Brown)

For more information on the winners and their movies, please visit http://www.docnz.org.nz

ENDS