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Simone Horrocks' After the Waterfall; & A special day


A lovely day!

A new feature with a woman writer/director starts production! Have put a little button on the sidebar and will add more links when they're available.


After the Waterfall is Simone Horrocks' adaptation of Stephen Blanchard's The Paraffin Child.

And there's an historic moment to celebrate. The NZFC site lists fourteen recent features —including docos—it has funded, either in production or released. Six have women directors (a seventh is in pre-production). This is a long way from a comment I heard from a woman filmmaker almost three years ago: " 'They' can only cope with one of us at a time." 

Another filmmaker said then: "If the NZFC knows there is a gender problem, the decision-makers will fix it." Has this happened? Has it made any difference, measuring and writing about the NZFC gender statistics? I may never know. When I started, probably all of these films were already in development. But now, as I write up my thesis, I have a lot more hope than I used to have. 

But I'm still convinced that there should be legislation for ongoing transparency about, and accountability for, NZFC's investment in women's stories. So that this positive trend is monitored and acknowledged. And any future counter-trend is identified and addressed.

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