Kane Strang’s New Album Out in June
After sharing a string of ace singles over the last few months, New Zealander Kane Strang has announced that his new album, Two Hearts and No Brain will be out…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Sam Neill Speaks about Tiny Rowland TV Role
New Zealand actor Sam Neill stars in Channel Nine’s television miniseries about Australian businessman Alan Bond’s life and said he was sure people would enjoy watching the “rollercoaster” ride. “You’re familiar with the story of…
Filmmaker Florian Habicht Gets Spooked
For his latest documentary, Spookers, which just made its world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, New Zealander Florian Habicht, 42, set his sights on something that has become an unlikely…
Fis Teams with Maori Sound Artist Rob Thorne
“Berlin-based producer Fis (aka Olly Peryman) shifts focus back to his home of New Zealand for Clear Stones, a collaborative album with veteran Maori sound artist Rob Thorne due on Subtext,” Miles…
Why Lorde Is a Great Dancer
Lorde’s unpolished dancing has drawn a mixture of criticism and backhanded praise from the public and press throughout her career. Perhaps it’s more accurate – and less patronising – to view the way she…
Playwright Eleanor Bishop’s Jane Doe Touring US
Jane Doe, previously titled We Are Steubenville, is a play created, written and directed by Eleanor Bishop, a New Zealand-born director who studied fine arts at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in…
Pork Pie Reboot Hits Australian Theatres
New Zealand’s Pork Pie screened recently as part of the Gold Coast Film Festival and is reviewed by Jake Tired for Australian entertainment news site, The Iris ahead of the film’s release in Australian…
Taika Waititi Confirms Thor Cameo
“With a very popular trailer already out, Marvel fans probably thought they already knew everything there was to know about the cast of Thor: Ragnarok,” according to…
Lorde Makes Sophisticated Return at Coachella
“Lorde used her late-evening (Coachella) slot to showcase material from her forthcoming album, Melodrama. Starting off with a portion of her lead single, Green Light, she performed staring straight down…
Lorde talks Melodrama at New York Diner
Lorde owns a house in Auckland, where she grew up, but for the better part of the last year she has been living at different hotels around New York, trying…
Top of the Lake Season Two More Accessible
Critics loved Top of the Lake, New Zealander Jane Campion’s dark crime drama, starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as Robin Griffin, the police detective tasked with finding out why a…
Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 Not Built For Passive Music Fan
From being BBC Radio 1’s “tastemaker-in-charge” for fresh, cutting-edge music to helming Apple’s fresh, cutting-edge new radio station, New Zealander Zane Lowe has found himself at the forefront of music media development, time and…
Isabella Moore’s Spine-Chilling Performance Lauded
Auckland soprano Isabella Moore’s recent performance in Puccini’s Suor Angelica at Conservatory Concert Hall in San Francisco is highly praised in online music site, San Francisco Classical Voice. “Moore was the spine-chilling Angelica, her voice…
Rose McIver on the Many Brains of IZombie
For the past two seasons of The CW series iZombie, star Rose McIver has managed to enjoy relative anonymity when the cameras stopped rolling. Thanks to the deathly pale zombie complexion and platinum wig…
First Thor: Ragnarok Trailer Released
The first trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, which was directed by Taika Waititi, has been released, as reported in an article in The Guardian. “Following on from the events of Avengers: Age…
New Ben Sanders Novel an Engrossing Chase Story
“In earlier Ben Sanders books, Marshall Grade worked undercover for the NYPD. When he made serious enemies in the criminal subculture, the federal cops hid him far away in the witness protection programme,” Toronto…
Simon Denny’s Mass Entrepreneurship on in China
Taking Shenzhen’s accelerated production model as its point of departure, New Zealand artist Simon Denny’s exhibition Real Mass Entrepreneurship looks at the myth of the small technology hardware business owner as global hero. The exhibition…
Soulful New Video for Singer Janine
New Zealand-born soul singer Janine, formerly known as Janine and the Mixtape, is back with a “heart-tugging visual for Don’t Love Me,” Adelle Platon reports for Billboard. “As previously heard on the emotional offerings like 2015’s…
David Trubridge Design Create Redwoods Nightlights
“Redwoods Treewalk and David Trubridge Design have partnered to create an iconic nocturnal tourism experience: the Redwoods Nightlights. Incorporating unique creations from Trubridge and his team; the Nightlights is…
Alluring Role for Paris Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill
Hannah O’Neill, 24, a New Zealander who joined the Paris Opéra Ballet company in 2011, is “a beguiling” Titania, Paul Jennings writes in an Observer review of the Opéra Bastille performance of A Midsummer…
Collector Patrick Pound Shows Treasured Snaps
Remember when we stopped buying family photo albums? Artist-collector New Zealand-born Patrick Pound does, Rebecca Michael writes for the Herald Sun. It was when analog became digital, when Kodak film vanished into the ether. But…
This is Shannon Cullen’s Journal for Mothers
When New Zealand-born Shannon Cullen had her first baby Matilda, who is now aged four, she found herself writing down random notes and doodles at all hours. This sparked the creation of
Aldous Harding Announces Party and Tour Dates
New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding will release her sophomore album, Party on 19 May. After sharing the striking single Horizon, Harding has also revealed European and US tour dates, beginning with a performance at The…
Phil Keoghan’s LE RIDE Tours USA
Phil Keoghan, New Zealander extraordinaire, host of ten-time Emmy Award-winning show The Amazing Race, travels the U.S. in April to screen his critically-acclaimed documentary feature film LE RIDE. LE RIDE recently…
Bruce Connew’s Body of Work Stirs Superlatives
Photographers are snipers, no question, and Bruce Connew – journalist, artist, documentarian – is an exemplar. Paint yourself into the background, disappear, wait, evaluate, breathe, stay calm, and take the shot when that moment…
Riverdale Is a Guilt-Free Pleasure to Watch
“‘Archie got hot – he has abs now!’ An actual line in the pilot episode of Riverdale,” which is Toronto Star columnist Shinan Govani’s latest innocent viewing pleasure, he admits. The lead role of…
Ambition Got Niki Caro to Where She Is Today
Picturing yourself as a successful movie director – then getting there – is notoriously tough for a woman in the United States, the epicentre of the movie industry. For a young woman in New…
Nathalie Boltt Joins KJ Apa in Riverdale
Wellington-based actress Nathalie Boltt has been missing fish and chips on the beach with her husband and son. The Riverdale star (she plays Penelope Blossom) is originally from South Africa but its her adopted…
David Low’s Churchill Cartoons Live On
New Zealander David Low, “who became Winston Churchill’s favourite cartoonist”, is included in a new book documenting the iconic images of Britain’s wartime leader. “Churchill’s long career makes a history of his portraits a history…
Deliberating on the Taika-Esqueness of Thor
Hunt for the Wilderpeople director Taika Waititi talks to the Guardian about joining the Marvel universe with his interpretation of Thor, which is due out in the United States in November. As far as whetting…
Meet The Rock’s Body Double Kelly Mcnaught
Kawerau chef Kelly Mcnaught was serving up food at a Gold Coast café when a customer asked if he could photograph him. “Then I got a Facebook message from an agent asking if I’d…
Eleanor Catton’s New Novel a Psychological Thriller
Eleanor Catton, the youngest ever Booker-prize winning author, has sold the rights to her third novel, a psychological thriller set in rural New Zealand where super-rich foreigners face off with ragtag locals on the…
Kane Strang Going on First European Tour
“New Zealander is currently in the midst of a huge tour of the United States, but that hasn’t stopped him announcing his first-ever European shows,” DIY magazine reports. “ was…
Online Star Dylan Rass Joins Australian Festival
At only 18, singer and social media star New Zealand-born Dylan Rass fits the bill for New South Wales’ Bring It On! Festival – young, ambitious and talented. Rass is the latest in a growing…
Nigel Hunt Charts Dubai’s Eye-Catching Growth
Online response to a film charting Dubai’s growth since just before 1979 has almost been as remarkable as the development it depicts, according to the National’s Nick Leech. The film is made by New…
Clive James on Sam Neill’s Richly Sane Career
“Performers do best to do their best every time. By no paradox, it is easier to maintain this attitude if you are not being treated as a deity,” Australian broadcaster and critic Clive James…
Annie Goldson’s Film Unravels Dotcom Drama
Kim Dotcom’s personal story is Shakespearean in its ups and downs, says New Zealander Annie Goldson, the director behind a documentary that has just had its premiere in the United States. When flamboyant internet entrepreneur Dotcom…
Why Filmmaker Niki Caro Travels
Notions of “home” and “away” get blurry when you’re a citizen of the world. So what does it mean to travel? For Niki Caro, Wellington-born writer and the director of soon-to-be-released The Zookeeper’s Wife,…
It’s Time to Rethink Peter Jackson’s King Kong
“History has been too unkind to which should be remembered not as lumbering and mindless, but as majestic and mesmerising,” according to critic Chris Hartwell writing for…
Violinist Alexandra Lomeiko Performs in Worthing
Christchurch-born violinist Alexandra Lomeiko recently performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra. Chichester Observer journalist Phil Hewitt writes: “Lomeiko was born in 1991 into a family of musicians and started playing at the…
Niki Caro in Warsaw for Holocaust Biopic
Hollywood stars, including New Zealand director Niki Caro, recently hit the red carpet in Warsaw for a gala screening of a film about a Polish couple who risked their lives to hide hundreds of…
Discovery’s First Ever Global Intern is Ben Mikha
After 10 weeks, 10,000 entries and almost a million votes cast, Discovery Channel has found its first global intern, 25-year-old Ben Mikha from Auckland. As the inaugural Discovery intern Mikha will soon jet off to…
Tami Neilson Has Canadian Fans Wanting More
In the opening slot on a recent North American tour with Canadian singer-songwriter Colin James was Tami Neilson, a Mississauga-bred, New Zealand-based dynamo whose 30-minute sets created a buzz with audiences. Neilson and her…
KJ Apa Shines on the Big Screen
Currently starring as the lead in hit television series Riverdale, which features characters from the Archie comic-books series, teen sensation New Zealander KJ Apa makes his big-screen debut in the moving tale A Dog’s…
Lang Leav’s Debut Novel Sad Girls out in May
International bestselling author New Zealander Lang Leav, known for her titles Love & Misadventure, Lullabies, Memories and The Universe of Us, is set to debut as a novelist this year. Leav recently took to
A Conversation with Ann Shelton
“A selection of Wellington artist Ann Shelton’s “prolific practice has been brought together in her review exhibition, Dark Matter, at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which opened on 26 November 2016 and continues…
Nadia Reid’s Lovelorn Folk Perfectly Crafted
New Zealand singer Nadia Reid, 25, has “decidedly upped the ante” on her second album Preservation, according to Guardian reviewer Dave Simpson. “ ethereal, pensive vocals are cast against plangent folk-guitar shapes, but there is…
Warner’s Meg Helps Launch Kumeu Film Studio
New Zealand’s newest production facility, the Kumeu Film Studio is to launch thanks to a three-way partnership built around the China-Hollywood co-produced, action-adventure film Meg, according to an exclusive story in Variety. The studio facility…
Ashleigh Young Wins Major Literary Prize
It is the kind of news we all dream of receiving, but New Zealand author and poet Ashleigh Young, 33, thought it was a hoax when told she’d receive more than $200,000 from one…
Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Next Chapter
Lorde’s comeback single Green Light, is an “upbeat announcement of change,” according to the Atlantic, one of many international publications praising the “inventive” pop singer’s new direction. “People have been waiting for Lorde’s future for…
Everyone Should Read This Fairy Tale
“Promised Land, a new children’s book that encourages LGBTQ acceptance (not to mention smashes any taboo around the subject) is so powerful,” Kaleigh Fasanella writes for Teen Vogue. “New Zealand-based authors, Adam Reynolds and…
James Sutherland Shaking Up Japanese Theatre
Founded in 2012 by New Zealand-born James Sutherland, you won’t be alone if you’ve never heard of the Tokyo-based International Centre for Theatre Arts, because few have seen any plays it has staged and…
John McBeth Launches Book on Indonesia’s SBY
New Zealand-born veteran correspondent John McBeth captured the darker side of former Indonesian president Susilo “SBY” Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency in his new book The Loner: President Yudhoyono’s Decade of Trial and Indecision. The title is…
Brad McCormick Takes His Kids Show on the Road
New Zealand-born writer and performer Brad McCormick is taking his production of Sammy and the Snow Leopard, under the auspices of the ground-breaking children’s theatre company Travelling Light, to the North-East of the UK…
Suzie Dawson Seeking Asylum in Moscow
Suzie Dawson didn’t set out to be an activist, but her involvement with the Occupy movement at the start of the decade led her to nut out and articulate her political perspective. The path…
John Gilbert and Dan Lemmon Win at Oscars
Two New Zealanders have won at the 89th Academy Awards: John Gilbert won Best Editing for his work on the WWII drama Hacksaw Ridge and Dan Lemmon won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects…
