Monday 10 March, 2014
Script to Screen, the NZWG and the NZFC combine to deliver The Writers’ Lab Aotearoa, which will take the writers of up to six features through a five-day residential lab programme with local and international mentors.

Monday 10 March, 2014
Arriving less than two months before the Football World Cup kicks off in Sao Paolo, it`s appropriate that the Reel Brazil Film Festival acknowledges the importance of the beautiful game in its programme.

Monday 10 March, 2014
Three features and a short film from Kiwi directors are playing in the programme for this year`s SXSW.

News Feature by: David Tiley
Monday 10 March, 2014
Late on Friday Madman founders Tim Anderson and Paul Wiegard announced that they will again own the company.

Friday 7 March, 2014
Peter Jackson`s The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug has continued its good run in China, adding US$26.57 million during its first full week on screens. After 10 days it`s taken just shy of US$60 million.

Friday 7 March, 2014
Alyx Duncan`s The Red House, which premiered in the NZIFF in 2012, is one of a select bunch of non-Canadian features selected for the Toronto-based festival.

Friday 7 March, 2014
In the week 12 Years a Slave took the Best Picture Oscar in Los Angeles, it slipped off the top spot at the box office here. The Hobbit 2 and The Pa Boys are quietly diminishing, while 3 Mile Limit readies to open with an unreported preview.

Friday 7 March, 2014
Craig Newland`s 3 Mile Limit opened in cinemas yesterday, having enjoyed an enthusiastic reception at its local premiere a couple of weeks back.

Friday 7 March, 2014
Taika Waititi`s TVC Blazed, for the NZ Transport Agency, was a multiple award-winner at last night`s Axis bash in Auckland.

Friday 7 March, 2014
MediaWeb, the publisher of OnFilm and a number of other trade titles, was placed in receivership late on Wednesday.

News Feature by: David Tiley
Thursday 6 March, 2014
In less than a decade, format sales have become a market with its own specialised rules and secret handshakes. And yet, it is still largely unregulated by case law. David Tiley asked entertainment lawyer Shaun Miller to explain the legal implications.

Wednesday 5 March, 2014
South Pacific Pictures` cornerstone property Shortland Street steadied the ship in a year when three multi-series shows and one new arrival bowed out.

Wednesday 5 March, 2014
That`s Geneva, Illinois - possibly the festival circuit equivalent of Paris, Texas - which will host the world premiere of ex-pat writer and director Alan Clay`s latest feature Courting Chaos.

Wednesday 5 March, 2014
I’m very pleased to be here to address this AIDC Conference. Thank you Joost, for providing the platform, to South Australia for hosting us, and to all of you for coming along…. beyond the formalities, the full speech makes a fascinating read.

Wednesday 5 March, 2014
Australasian distributor Madman Entertainment is likely to change hands in the next few months, as owners Funtastic look to concentrate some of the company`s activities inhouse. Funtastic activity covers licensing and merchandising around a number of local and international entertainment-based properties, not all of which Madman distributes.

Wednesday 5 March, 2014
American Hustle`s 10 nods got completely hustled and left empty-handbagged. Gravity did the biz for sheer volume, 12 Years picking off gongs for Best Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay and the big one.

Monday 3 March, 2014
The Banana in a Nutshell writer/director will henceforth be considered “distinguished” by her alma mater. Liang is one of six alumni to be honoured later this month.

Monday 3 March, 2014
Leanne Pooley`s Beyond the Edge will play Bradford, one of the many BIFFs of the festival circuit.

Monday 3 March, 2014
At the Independent Spirit Awards which warm up the Oscars, 12 Years a Slave went in with seven nominations, Nebraska with six - but only one converted multiple nominations into gongs.

Friday 28 February, 2014
Helen Bowden, one of the founders of Australia`s successful Matchbox Pictures spoke to Philippa Campbell about the Australian environment and the challenges of making drama for AU$1.1 million/hour.

Friday 28 February, 2014
The 10 short doco projects seeking support from crowd-funders have all passed the $2,000 pledge trigger that will see them take the money and shoot.

Friday 28 February, 2014
Kirstin Marcon`s The Most Fun You Can Have Dying is off to Aussie for the weekend, nominated for the Byron Bay Film Festival`s Best Dramatic Feature award. Producer Alex Cole-Baker and Steven Gannaway, writer of the novel from which the film was adapted, will support the film.

Friday 28 February, 2014
The state broadcaster made a profit of $20.8 million in the first half of the year. That positive news was overshadowed by CEO Kevin Kenrick having to apologise for the actions of staff for the second time in two weeks.

Friday 28 February, 2014
Oscar favourite 12 Years a Slave takes top spot ahead of the ceremony that will draw a line under 2014`s awards season. The Hobbit 2 and The Pa Boys both potter along.

Friday 28 February, 2014
The full programme for this year`s Hong Kong festival reveals a couple of Kiwi titles, plus plenty of evidence of the very strong relationships the festival has built across the region.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
WIFT NZ announced the recipients of its seven award categories Wednesday evening in Auckland.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
Documentary Edge Festival has announced the first new titles and one restored old one for its 2014 edition.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
The Desolation of Smaug carves out more nominations than any other title for the British vox pop awards. Evil Dead is also named and Air NZ gets on the board as an award sponsor.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
The King`s Speech writer David Seidler closed out Animfx with his musings on writing, subversion and sticking to one`s guns.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
Whale Rider director Niki Caro and event director Mike Mizrahi are the familiar faces in this year`s Semi-Permanent programme, hitting Auckland in early May.

News Feature by: David Tiley
Wednesday 26 February, 2014
Des Monaghan, long one half of the Des and Bob show which built Screentime into the purveyor of memorable shows such as Underbelly and Cloudstreet, is stepping down as executive chairman of the company.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
Step Dave suffers in its third episode, while the performance of The GC`s second season is a worry for TV3.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
The monthly Chinese box office has passed 3 billion yuan (NZ$588 million) for the first time, in 24 days of the year`s shortest month.

Wednesday 26 February, 2014
Thailand`s National Film Awards, aka the Subhanahongsa or Golden Swan Awards, changed its systems this year, resulting in some unexpected winners at the weekend`s ceremony.

Tuesday 25 February, 2014
Following its good reviews out of Sundance, including from most of the major international trades, What We Do in the Shadows generated far less coverage in Berlin. That didn`t mean it wasn`t still playing well and finding critical love.

Monday 24 February, 2014
The Rob Tapert-produced Evil Dead has picked up two wins at the Fright Meter Awards in the US on the weekend.

Tuesday 11 March, 2014
The New Zealand Children’s Screen Trust (NZCST) will select 20 young New Zealanders to be on the jury for the television industry’s most prestigious international children’s television festival, Prix Jeunesse.

Monday 24 February, 2014
Sky`s first half profits rose 22% to $82.1 million, mostly driven by subscribers switching to My Sky and a 9% reduction in programming costs.

Monday 24 February, 2014
Rialto Channel 48HOURS has opened registrations for the competition`s 12th edition in NZ.

Monday 24 February, 2014
Greenstone`s new owners, Australian production company CJZ, have announced The Next Big Idea pitch.

Monday 24 February, 2014
The Hobbit hasn`t fallen short in China, where The Desolation of Smaug opens to almost 75% more box-office love than An Unexpected Journey.

Monday 24 February, 2014
The Costume Designers Guild (CDG) overlooked The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug for its Fantasy Film gong at the weekend awards ceremony.

Friday 21 February, 2014
Telecom will change its name to Spark later this year and introduce an internet TV service called Showme TV.

Friday 21 February, 2014
Top of the Lake secures four nominations for the UK`s Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.

Friday 21 February, 2014
It`s not quite late enough to slip into the end of party slow and smoochy song, but SPADA and Equity claim they`re busily dotting the last i`s and crossing the final t`s on how they`ll administer the long-coming replacement for the Pink Book.

Friday 21 February, 2014
NHNZ`s L.A. Frock Stars competes in the IMPACT Awards` Documentary-style Reality category next month in Italy.

Wednesday 19 February, 2014
Formed by Richard Fletcher, Paul Davis and Neil Cross last year, the company has now opened its Big Break call for undiscovered script-writing talent, although those who know what they`re doing are also welcome to apply.

Wednesday 19 February, 2014
After last week`s issue with ratings, one approached Step Dave`s numbers with caution this week, but the good news story that was – eventually – revealed from the first episode continued through the second.

Wednesday 19 February, 2014
James Cameron talks to the French, in English, to explain the state of play with Avatar parts deux, trois et quatre.

Wednesday 19 February, 2014
Sky Network Television contemplates a bond offer to raise $100 million.

Wednesday 19 February, 2014
TVNZ spent yesterday in pedal-to-the-metal damage control, after Shane Taurima resigned.

Monday 17 February, 2014
Shifting from its regular November calendar slot didn`t seem to have helped Animfx, at least on its conference day, where attendance numbers seemed well down on previous years.

Monday 17 February, 2014
Andrew Cooper`s Help took the top gong on a lovely evening in Taranaki.

Monday 17 February, 2014
Research commissioned by Australasian games industry organisation IGEA throws some light on consumer spending. While not addressing spend on NZ-developed games, the spending patterns reinforce the message that the local game development industry is on the right track.

Monday 17 February, 2014
A well-known British film set in space, with two American leads and a Mexican director, led the pack with 11 nominations going into the evening. It also led the way out, converting six of those 11 nominations into gongs.

Monday 17 February, 2014
One of the many announcements made in Berlin to escape our notice at the time was from Toronto`s Artistic Director Cameron Bailey.

Monday 17 February, 2014
Asia titles made a strong showing on awards night in Berlin, which was celebrating its own success. A record 330,000 tickets had been sold over a day before the festival concluded – confirming its place as the world`s largest film festival.

Friday 14 February, 2014
The Pa Boys didn`t report its numbers for its opening weekend, but the first week`s numbers don`t look that flash.

Friday 14 February, 2014
The media commentator and former head of news at TVNZ has died.

Friday 14 February, 2014
And also Ancient and (unless you`re David Tua) Awesome. The NZIFF delivers a selection of classics for this year`s Autumn Events programme.

Friday 14 February, 2014
On Wednesday we published an article noting Step Dave`s indifferent debut. On Thursday a red-faced Nielsen issued revised ratings data for Step Dave and other programming. BLushes aside, the revised numbers tell a welcome story.

Friday 14 February, 2014
A day ahead of the announcement of the winner of the second edition of Make My Movie, the winner of the first, Dean Hewison, wins support for Blue Harvest short Judgment Tavern.

Friday 14 February, 2014
Make My Horror Movie has announced Jason Lei Howden`s Deathgasm (“Evil is Coming”) as the winner of the $200,000 budget from the MPI Media USA.

Friday 14 February, 2014
Alfonso Cuaron`s Gravity swept aside the contenders in the motion picture categories, but a win The Desolation of Smaug prevented a clean sweep.

Wednesday 12 February, 2014
The NZ-shot remake of the The Evil and Neil Cross-scripted Mama are in the frame for Fangoria`s Chainsaw Awards.

Wednesday 12 February, 2014
Having put plenty of money into NZ film production over the last decade and a half, Warner Brothers is now spending on some TV. The studio`s TV Group is buying up all of Eyeworks` non-US interests, including the NZ company founded by Julie Christie, in a deal worth cNZ$300 million.

Friday 7 February, 2014
SXSW yesterday released a mammoth programme announcement. Sifting through, Paul Neason`s Queenie was named in the Animated Shorts programme.