Ōtepoti / Dunedin

City Winner

The Fountain of Youth by Mayodaze

Runner Up

A Few Things by Midnight Sunburn

Finalists

Congratulations to the 2024 city finalists.

  • 48 hours of Musical Theatre - It's About Time
  • Blackbird Pie - A Bad time in real time
  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Concerned and Confused - Monster Monster
  • Curb Side Entertainment - Beware of the Dog
  • Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted
  • Gleet Street Riot - Defective Noir
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Lezz Go - Match
  • Magnificent B - Skiddles' Run

Award Winners

Wift Best Female / Gender Diverse Filmmaker

Mayodaze - Jade Sheppard

Nominees:

  • Blackbird Pie - Lillia Mcnatty
  • Midnight Sunburn - Georgia Wales/Zyanya Jackson
  • Sesame - Eva Brunel
  • SOHS1  - Erin Turner/Jessamine Daumann

City Manager Award - Most Thought-Provoking Film

Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things 

Nominees:

  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth
  • PEAKE PRODUCTIONS - Emily
  • the castle st couch burners - The Goat

Best Director

Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth 

Nominees:

  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things
  • Magnificent B - Skiddles' Run

Best School

SOHS 1 - Ghost Summoning Vlog #23 

Nominees:

  • SOHS 2 - Without Knowledge

Best Performer

Gold Rushes - Amalia Remus 

Nominees:

  • Concerned and Confused - Ryan McAnally
  • Foreign Worlds - Tao Damichey-Siacchi
  • Mayodaze - Harrison Greer
  • Magnificent B - Ewan Jones

Best Script

Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth 

Nominees:

  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Magnificent B - Skiddles' Run
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Best Cinematography

Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Nominees:

  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Magnificent B - Skiddles' Run
  • Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth

Best Production Design

Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things 

Nominees:

  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • T-Block Productions - Of Ash And Flesh

Best Animation

Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted

Nominees:

  • Blackbird Pie - A Bad time in real time

Best Editing

Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Nominees:

  • Curb Side Entertainment - Beware of the Dog
  • Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth

Best Sound Design

Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted 

Nominees:

  • Blackbird Pie - A Bad time in real time 
  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Best Original Score/Song

48 hours of Musical Theatre - It's About Time 

Nominees:

  • Magnificent B - Skiddles' Run
  • Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things
  • the castle st couch burners - The Goat

Incredibly Strange

the castle st couch burners - The Goat

Nominees:

  • Concerned and Confused - Monster Monster 1
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Best Disqualified Film

Highview- Misinformation

Best Use of Genre

Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth 

Nominees:

  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Knox C Productions - Box For Next Door
  • the castle st couch burners - The Goat

Best Use of Warning

Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted 

Nominees:

  • Bus of the Undead - Knight Court
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Mayodaze - The Fountain of Youth

Best Use of Traveller

SOHS 2 - Without Knowledge

Nominees:

  • Andromeda Productions - The Gastronaut
  • Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted
  • Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Best Use of Match Cut

Lezz Go - Match 

Nominees:

  • Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted
  • PEAKE PRODUCTIONS - Emily
  • T-Block Productions - Of Ash And Flesh

Best Use of Exit

Midnight Sunburn - A Few Things

Nominees:

  • Discombobulated Pistachios - Targeted
  • Gold Rushes - The Reality of Love
  • Lezz Go - Match
  • Notmad - Atomic

City Manager

Your Ōtepoti / Dunedin City Manager and is Miguel Weaver.

 

Miguel Weaver

Miguel is your friendly Otago/Southland area manager. With a wealth of short film, music video, promotional video, and feature films credits, 12 years of running festivals, and over a decade in the circus world, he has a broad range of expertise to call on. 

Contacts 

Email Miguel

Call Miguel - 027 694 2401

Join our Facebook group here

Judges

Jaimee Poipoi

 

Jaimee (Ngāti Kahungunu/Ngā Puni) has 10+ years of film and television experience working on local projects like Red, White and Brass (2023) to international tent pole films like the next Avatar movies (2022 & 2024).

Once described as a creative swiss-army knife, she created/directed the RNZ Investigative comedy series ConspiraSeries (2022), co-created/hosted the 70s-themed RNZ comedy podcast, The Art of Entertaining (2022), and has produced and directed many films through her company Electric Shoelace Productions, that have screened in national and international festivals – most recently the animated short films Who Sneezed and Star Sailors (as Director), and the NZFC Fresh Short film Hey, Brainy Man (as Producer) which won the 2023 NZIFF Patrons Award for Best Short Film

In 2022 she was awarded a special grant in the NZFC Gender Scholarship, recognising the work of Emerging Wahine Producers, and is 1 of 6 Directors in the 2023 DEGANZ Emerging Women in Filmmakers Incubator. Naturally drawn to unique and interesting stories, Jaimee aims to use her wide range of skills to create content with a focus on diverse people, through a comedic lens.

Oana Jones

 

Oana Jones is a Director, Producer and Science Communicator. Her work includes VR and Fulldome, animated shorts, documentary filmmaking and science communication. Her work has been featured in Planetariums, galleries, virtual reality, augmented reality and even onto buildings for the Dunedin Midwinter Carnival.

She opened and managed the Perpetual Guardian Planetarium in Dunedin’s Otago Museum for almost seven years and in that time has developed seven planetarium films, contributed to four funded digital exhibitions and created dozens of museum programmes. Currently she’s a lecturer in Game Art and Animation at the University of Canterbury and her research explores immersive film and exhibition design and the intersection between digital and physical interaction.

Bex Rowe

 

Bex’ first introduction to Film and Television was was in 2002 studying screenwriting in Melbourne. Twenty two years on Bex’ work history spans over several sectors for both Domestic and International projects under the roles of Production, Post Production, Casting, Script Coordinating, Assistant Directing, Publicity & Art Department.
Some local projects include One Winter, The Rehearsal & Wellington Paranormal as well as International productions such as; King Kong, Avatar, Spartacus & The Power of the Dog.
Since returning to her hometown Dunedin in 2019, Bex is an active Film Otago Southland Board Member, consults for DCC around crew capacity, infrastructure and studio potential and is a regular contributor as Dunedin representative for the NZ Tech Guild magazine.

Stefan Roesch

 

Stefan is the Head of Film Dunedin and Co-Manager of Film Otago Southland. He has nearly 20 years of experience in market research and is a leading expert on film tourism. In 2003, he emigrated to New Zealand to embark on the world’s first PhD in Film Tourism at the University of Otago. He has consulted various destinations on film tourism projects around the world, including the likes of VisitBritain on the movie PADDINGTON and Tourism Northern Ireland on GAME OF THRONES.

To date, Stefan has produced three award-winning short films – two in Germany and one in New Zealand. In October 2023, he was awarded the designation of Certified Film Commissioner (CFC) and has recently been elected on the Board of Directors at the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI).

Guy Pigden

 

Like many in the screen industry, Guy Pigden's career divides into two different strands. He writes and directs his own movies; he also makes corporate videos and is a cameraman for hire. Pigden's first feature was ambitious horror comedy I Survived a Zombie Holocaust (2014), which won $250,000 funding from low budget filmmaking scheme Escalator. The movie had festival success overseas, as did his 2016 short film No Caller ID. After directing WatchMe web series Harrow, Pigden went on to sell two feature-length projects to Amazon Prime in quick succession: his long in gestation romance Older, and comedy Immi the Vegan.