DOC2DOC WELLINGTON | November line up announced

We’re pleased to announce line up for the upcoming DOC2DOC in Wellington. Noted filmmaker Anna Cottrell will be the chair for the evening.

Monday 23 November 2009
7.30pm
The Lodge, Southern Cross, Abel Smith St, Wellington
Koha

MY TWO DADS | Naomi Wallwork
STRAWBERRIES WITH THE FUHRER | Amy O’Connor
WHALE LIKE ME | Malcolm Wright
FINDING MERCY

MY TWO DADS | Naomi Wallwork
Currently in production
Feature documentary

Synopsis
My Two Dads compares and contrasts the lives of two very different men who both happen to be my dad. My father Rudy is an aspiring property magnate who loves betting, BBQs and beer. My stepfather Phil is the East & Bays Courier longest serving paper boy and a sometime film extra and reality TV star. He loves Morris Minors, the Boy’s Brigade and hates to throw anything away. The embarrassment that their activities caused me while growing up is now replaced by appreciation and admiration. But is this only because I’m turning into them?

Bio
Naomi has worked as a lawyer in Wellington and a contracts manager for the BBC World Service in London. In 2005 she decided to follow her film-making dreams and returned to New Zealand to attend The Film School. Following graduation from The Film School Naomi freelanced in production while trying to get funding for various film and theatre projects, including this documentary. She has made short films and documentaries that have screened at OutTakes, the Wellington Fringe Film Festival and the Belladonna Film Festival as well as on the gay magazine programme The Outlook. Naomi currently works at NZ On Air in the Television Team.

STRAWBERRIES WITH THE FUHRER | Amy O’Connor
Currently in production
Feature documentary

Synopsis
How many people can say that they had strawberries and ice cream with Adolf Hitler? How many people are retelling that experience 70 years later and on the other side of the world from where it all happened? Helga Tiscenko, 79 years old, retired school teacher living in Timaru, New Zealand. A wife of 60 years, mother ofthree, and grandmother of four.Helga is the daughter of Hermann Höfle, a high ranking Nazi Officer, acquitted at the Nuremberg trials, but then tried and executed in Slovakia in 1947. The family know very little why. Helga emigrated from Germany, leaving her mother and sister, and has spent her life after the collapse of the Nazi regime knuckling down to create a life for her family in New Zealand – to be free of the burdens of the memories from her past.This documentary story invites the audience to experience a moment in Helga’s shoes; to explore her battle of living two separate lives and at the same time take a journey to search for viable information about her family’s tie to the Third Reich.

Bio
Amy O’Connor has been involved with filmmaking for six years and in that time has developed from a film student at the School of Fine Arts Canterbury University to a hard working member of the film and television industry in Wellington. Amy has taken on roles that have exposed her to both pre-production and post-production. These experiences have heightened her awareness of the potency of documentary as a visual form; both on an emotional and intellectual level. Amy’s desire to work in the documentary field has led her to follow her instincts. She has made documentaries on women in the work place; Victorian prostitutes in 19th century Christchurch; and has now uncovered the story of a South Cantabrian family and their relationship with Hitler. Amy has an instinct for a catchy story and the ability to attach a challenging treatment to it.

WHALE LIKE ME | Malcolm Wright
Currently in production
52 minute HD documentary

Synopsis
This is documentary on a man’s incidental adventure into breaking the whaling stalemate between Japan and anti‐whaling nations. Destined for TV audiences around the world, a special focus is given to providing a Japanese audience with a film they can find their own perspectives reflected in.

Bio
After studies in Marine Biology and Film at the University of Miami, Malcolm engaged in a highly successful visual effects career contributing to productions such as Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King and King Kong, I Robot, Charlotte’s Web, The Waterhorse, and James Cameron’s Avatar. After spending 10 years crafting award winning visual effects for the feature film, television, documentary and video game medias, he founded Quiet Heart Film, feeling an urgency to direct his talents towards stories beneficial to unlocking the unique knots of our times. The grand son of celebrated African American author Richard Wright, Malcolm brings an international, literary, historical and political perspective to his creative projects – and seeks to inspire and empower individuals and communities to get involved with creative solutions to the challenges we face.

FINDING MERCY
Currently in early production
Feature documentary

Synopsis
At the age of nine, I stood on the runway of a Zimbabwean airforce base with my best friend, Mercy Shumba. Our excitement was palpable. Today, we were to meet our hero – Comrade Robert Mugabe – in person. Me as pale skinned as Mercy was dark, we were poster children for the new Zimbabwe. We had been chosen to greet Mugabe. Nervously we curtsied, smiled for the news cameras, and placed garlands of flowers around his neck. We were a symbol that all was well in post-independence Zimbabwe. But it was not. In this documentary I will search for Mercy, tracking back through our lives which year for year span Mugabe’s reign. Along the way I will face the stark differences we have come to represent – my comfortable life in New Zealand a far cry from her tenuous existence in Zimbabwe.

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