News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

At the inaugural Australian Record Industry Association awards (ARIAs) in 1987, New Zealand judge (and now Australianised) Jenny Morris was joined by a countryman whose second band was named best new talent and went…

Mark Wigley Judging Hot Helsinki Guggenheim Competition

Mark Wigley Judging Hot Helsinki Guggenheim Competition

New Zealand born architect and author Mark Wigley is the jury chair for the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, which has now announced finalists for the as-yet-unapproved Guggenheim art museum in Finland’s capital. The jury has…

Roland Taylor’s Sydney Storm Grabs World’s Attention

Roland Taylor’s Sydney Storm Grabs World’s Attention

Sydney’s spectacular early-season storms may just crack open a photographic career for Wanaka-born Roland Taylor, with his recent images attracting hundreds of thousands of online views. Taylor, 24, combined a perfect vantage point…

Arrow Star Manu Bennett Revels in Playing the Bad Guy

Arrow Star Manu Bennett Revels in Playing the Bad Guy

Playing the bad guy has never worried New Zealand-born actor Manu Bennett who enjoys the roles of two deliciously deviant characters at the moment: Arrow’s anti-hero Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke) and the terrifying Orc…

John Gallas’ Cat Is the Guardian Poem of the Week

John Gallas’ Cat Is the Guardian Poem of the Week

“In this modern take on Baudelaire, a moment of sensual connection with a pet resonates with a lover’s unknowability” in New Zealander John Gallas’ poem, Cat, the Guardian’s “Poem of the week”. “Gallas recently published…

Optically nourishing Birds With Skymirrors premieres in US

Optically nourishing Birds With Skymirrors premieres in US

“While many artists may feel moved to address climate change, the matter has special urgency for the Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and the members of his company, Mau,” New York Times correspondent…

Rocky Horror Sequel Shock Treatment Heading for London Stage

Rocky Horror Sequel Shock Treatment Heading for London Stage

The sequel to cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show is set to be adapted for the London stage. Director Benji Sperring will bring Richard O’Brien’s Shock Treatment to the King’s Head Theatre in spring 2015, which will include…

Bret Mckenzie Nails Music for Old Spice Commercial

Bret Mckenzie Nails Music for Old Spice Commercial

Bret McKenzie has composed a “lunatic” 60-second musical for men’s aftershave brand Old Spice, and “Dadsong” “isn’t just an important component – it’s the main component, around which everything revolves”, according to Adweek. Sara Matarazzo,…

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan’s Workout-Anywhere Tips

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan’s Workout-Anywhere Tips

How does New Zealander Phil Keoghan, globe-trotting Amazing Race host, stay fit? the Los Angeles Times asks. By finding a “gym” anywhere he goes. Keoghan gets around. The host of the Emmy-winning CBS show since…

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Is One Epic Film

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Is One Epic Film

Seventeen years after Sir Peter Jackson won the rights to film The Lord Of The Rings, he is finally taking leave of JRR Tolkien and Middle-earth with the conclusion of The Hobbit. The new film marks a magnificent,…

George Johnson’s Captivating Canvasses Exhibited

George Johnson’s Captivating Canvasses Exhibited

Nelson-born George Johnson is a giant of Australian “geometric abstraction” and his work, along with that of local heavyweights Jon Plapp and Trevor Vickers, was recently exhibited at Melbourne’s Nancy Sever Gallery. In a review…

Antarctica Travelogue Gorgeously Photographed

Antarctica Travelogue Gorgeously Photographed

“Anthony Powell’s Antarctica: A Year on Ice is a gorgeously photographed travelogue about the harshest terrain on Earth,” writes Star Tribune reviewer Colin Covert. “Powell’s feature-length documentary is a trove of time-lapse shots and…

Stars Dazzle At The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies World Premiere

Stars Dazzle At The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies World Premiere

Oscar Winning New Zealand director Sir Peter Jackson and his stars arrived on a green carpet for the world premiere of his latest film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. The premiere was…

Maori Portraits Lining the Walls of Berlin’s National Gallery

Maori Portraits Lining the Walls of Berlin’s National Gallery

For the first time, Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, in association with Auckland Art Gallery, presents the Maori portraits of Bohemian artist Gottfried Lindauer, whose works are all but unknown outside of New Zealand. The paintings…

NZ-China Sign World-First TV Co-Production Agreement

NZ-China Sign World-First TV Co-Production Agreement

The New Zealand and China governments have signed what’s said to be a world first television industry co-production agreement, which is in addition to a feature film treaty signed in 2010 and is the…

Stone Street Studios to Produce Pete’s Dragon

Stone Street Studios to Produce Pete’s Dragon

Walt Disney has confirmed that production of Pete’s Dragon, a remake of the 1977 film and starring Robert Redford, will be based at Peter Jackson’s Stone Street Studios. The live-action and CGI film…

Maori Martial Arts Rule the Big Screen in The Dead Lands

Maori Martial Arts Rule the Big Screen in The Dead Lands

Matthew Metcalfe’s feature film The Dead Lands, shot entirely in Te Reo Maori and the first to showcase the ancient Maori martial art mau rakau, is due for official worldwide release early next year. The…

Peter Jackson to Get Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Peter Jackson to Get Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

New Zealand filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson is set to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ahead of the release of his new film The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Jackson…

Artist Max Gimblett to Conquer London with Love

Artist Max Gimblett to Conquer London with Love

One of New Zealand’s most renowned and successful contemporary artists, Max Gimblett will be the subject of his first solo exhibition in the UK, “Love Conquers All,” at Kashya Hildebrand…

Lorde’s NYC A&R Man’s Lucky Day

Lorde’s NYC A&R Man’s Lucky Day

How does a teenager from Devonport, Auckland get plucked from relative obscurity to become a worldwide chart-topping phenomenon? Once-in-a-generation talent helps, but those gifts need to be paired with music execs who have the…

Rosie Project Author Graeme Simsion Plans Third Novel

Rosie Project Author Graeme Simsion Plans Third Novel

Author of hit novel The Rosie Project, New Zealand-born Graeme Simsion, 58, says he envisages a third novel with an uncontracted fourth novel on the drawing board. The book, about an eccentric man in want…

Estère – the New Face of Soul Music

Estère – the New Face of Soul Music

An example of soul music’s possible future is 22-year-old New Zealander Estère, who recently played at the annual Australian World Music Expo (AWME) in Melbourne. The Wellington-based bedroom artist – she literally writes and records…

Noosa Gets Its Rhythm on with Drummer Nathaniel Combs

Noosa Gets Its Rhythm on with Drummer Nathaniel Combs

Waikiri-born percussionist Nathaniel Combs, 31, has played with world-famous ensembles such as Les Percussion de Guinea, Les Visage de Guinee, and the prestigious Kaloum Lole during time spent in Guinea, West Africa in 2004. Now,…

Equine Artist Peter Willams a Kentucky Fixture

Equine Artist Peter Willams a Kentucky Fixture

New Zealander Peter Williams is the resident artist at Keeneland racecourse in Kentucky, a gentleman with an easel, canvas and palette of paints quietly working as the pageantry of the meet swirls around him,…

Lorde’s ‘Hunger Games’ Soundtrack

Lorde’s ‘Hunger Games’ Soundtrack

The Wall Street Journal’s John Jurgensen reviews the soundtrack Lorde curated for the latest blockbuster Hunger Games movie, in an article titled “How Lorde Played God on the ‘Hunger Games’ Soundtrack’.” ““The Hunger Games” has another…

Shane Cotton Solo Exhibition Opens in Hong Kong

Shane Cotton Solo Exhibition Opens in Hong Kong

One of New Zealand’s foremost contemporary artists, Shane Cotton will present “The Voyage Out”, a solo exhibition of new works on at Hong Kong’s Rossi Rossi gallery until 27 December. The gallery explains: “Part of…

Swedes Are Funnier than They Think Says Al Pitcher

Swedes Are Funnier than They Think Says Al Pitcher

“One of Sweden’s hottest comedians,” our own Al Pitcher, 42, has launched his new comedy show, Nääämen: It’s Al Pitcher, in Stockholm. Educated in Rotorua, Pitcher has won numerous comedy awards in his new…

‘What We Do In the Shadows’ Wins Hawaii Audience Prize

‘What We Do In the Shadows’ Wins Hawaii Audience Prize

“What We Do In the Shadows,” Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s New Zealand-made documentary-style comedy about three flatmates who happen to be vampires won the audience award for best narrative feature at the Hawaii International…

Weta’s Richard Taylor Takes on Thunderbirds Challenge

Weta’s Richard Taylor Takes on Thunderbirds Challenge

The idea to adapt half-century-old television series Thunderbirds began 12 years ago when New Zealander Richard Taylor an Oscar-winning visual effects, makeup and costumes wizard, went to the UK to ask for creator Gerry…

Teen Star James Rolleston on Why He’s “Nothing Flash-As”

Teen Star James Rolleston on Why He’s “Nothing Flash-As”

The New Zealand actor James Rolleston who impressed in Taika Waititi’s smash hit Boy is back with two new homegrown films that wowed at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. In The Dead Lands Rolleston,…

Taika Waititi Pens Disney Animation Film Moana

Taika Waititi Pens Disney Animation Film Moana

Disney’s 56th animated film Moana has magic written all over it, according to the Latin Post and New Zealand writer and director Taika Waititi has a hand in it. The film is the studio’s…

Indie Stars Dean Wareham and Luna Announce Reunion

Indie Stars Dean Wareham and Luna Announce Reunion

After a decade apart, indie rockers Luna, fronted by New Zealand-born Dean Wareham, have “insouciantly” announced their reunion with a string of dates in Spain and vague hints at US dates, planned for next…

Curator Wayne Tunnicliffe Assembles Blockbuster Pop Exhibit

Curator Wayne Tunnicliffe Assembles Blockbuster Pop Exhibit

The Art Gallery of NSW’s art curator New Zealander Wayne Tunnicliffe has spent more than two years assembling a pop art collection of 200 artworks from Australia, Britain, Germany, Portugal, France, Spain and the…

Hayden Tee One of Melbourne’s Hottest Musical Stars

Hayden Tee One of Melbourne’s Hottest Musical Stars

New Zealander Hayden Tee is one of Melbourne’s East End Theatre district’s hottest stars, playing Javert in Les Misérables, which then tours Australia over the next 20 months. Tee, who is based in New York,…

Lorde Dishes up Pre-fame Secrets for Billboard

Lorde Dishes up Pre-fame Secrets for Billboard

With the Lorde-curated Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack coming out on 17 November, the soon-to-be-18-year-old pop singer is proving her taste in collaborators – Kanye West, Chemical Brothers, Miguel and more – are…

Rena Owen’s Hollywood Revival

Rena Owen’s Hollywood Revival

On the telephone from her West Hollywood apartment New Zealand actress Rena Owen says the biggest misconception about her life in Los Angeles is that she leads one of movie-star luxury. “The amount of people…

Uili Lousi’s Sacred Geometry and Leap of Faith

Uili Lousi’s Sacred Geometry and Leap of Faith

Uili Lousi, Tongan-born New Zealand artist, speaks to the Epoch Times about his journey of art and using New York city for spiritual inspiration. “New York is the best place to test your spiritual life,”…

Mansfield, Hulme, Frame – Literary Wizards

Mansfield, Hulme, Frame – Literary Wizards

With the Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan announced as this year’s Booker winner – last year, was our own, Eleanor Catton – the Irish Times brings you “10 great novels from Down Under”. Three authors from…

Designer Sean Kelly Wins Project Runway Season 13

Designer Sean Kelly Wins Project Runway Season 13

New Zealander Sean Kelly, 25, has won season 13 of Project Runway, battling it out with a show at New York Fashion Week in a final judge Heidi Klum declared the best in the…

Jennifer Flay Helping Inject New Life into French Art Scene

Jennifer Flay Helping Inject New Life into French Art Scene

Premier Paris art fair Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) has never been better according to experts, and all thanks to New Zealander Jennifer Flay who has been at the helm of FIAC…

Chelsea Jade Making New Music Offshore in NY and Tokyo

Chelsea Jade Making New Music Offshore in NY and Tokyo

Singer Chelsea Jade Metcalf has created considerable buzz in her home of New Zealand, and she’s finally ready to take her art elsewhere; she’s been in New York recently for the CMJ Music Marathon,…

Weta Cave Workshop Expands for Tour Groups

Weta Cave Workshop Expands for Tour Groups

Hobbit fever is ramping up in Wellington ahead of the third and final installment of Peter Jackson‘s “Hobbit” trilogy and Weta Workshop is expanding to meet demand. In a bid to cater to growing demand from tour groups…

Andrew McCarten on How to Make a Film about a Living Person

Andrew McCarten on How to Make a Film about a Living Person

New Zealand producer and screenwriter Anthony McCarten discusses the difficulties in making a film about a person who is still alive. McCarten’s latest feature is a biopic about theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, The Theory…

Art of Living with Significant Spatial Drama

Art of Living with Significant Spatial Drama

New Zealand-born painter Stefan Dunlop’s treetop Noosa home is one of a number of artists’ houses throughout the world with “significant spatial drama”, according to a Telegraph article. Dunlop is an individual “with an…

Simon O’Neill Is the Mighty Otello in New Houston Opera Season

Simon O’Neill Is the Mighty Otello in New Houston Opera Season

For most tenors, according to New Zealander Simon O’Neill, performing as Otello “is the Everest” of all roles. He plays the Moorish general for the Houston Grand Opera season. Otello demands a tenor…

‘Housebound’ a Satisfying Horror-Comedy Spookfest

‘Housebound’ a Satisfying Horror-Comedy Spookfest

The horror-comedy film Housebound, the writing-directing feature debut from New Zealand filmmaker Gerard Johnstone, is described as “creepy, silly, inventive, darkly funny and, at one point, mind blowingly bloody,” by Gary Goldstein for the…

Mark Burry Maintains Epic Work on the Sagrada Família

Mark Burry Maintains Epic Work on the Sagrada Família

Executive architect of the Sagrada Família New Zealander Mark Burry has been able to complete Gaudí’s designs by devising parametric computer modelling techniques, adapted from the aerospace industry. Burry has even sped up the…

Hospitality Guru Shane Green to the Rescue

Hospitality Guru Shane Green to the Rescue

Las Vegas hospitality guru New Zealander Shane Green is the host of new Travel Chanel reality show, Resort Rescue. Green shows owners his unbelievable hidden camera discoveries and why their resort is in bad…

Artist Louise Menzies Thinks like a Mountain at UConn

Artist Louise Menzies Thinks like a Mountain at UConn

Auckland-based multimedia artist Louise Menzies is serving as artist-in-residence at the University of Connecticut (UConn) creating the exhibition, “Time to Think Like a Mountain,” which focuses on materials found in the university’s…

US Indie Film Role for Former Vampire Jemaine Clement

US Indie Film Role for Former Vampire Jemaine Clement

New Zealand comedian Jemaine Clement, who played 862-year-old Vladislav in What We Do in the Shadows, will next star in the indie drama People Places Things directed by James Strouse. Following appearances in Hollywood films…

Lorde Expressing Existential Emotions Beyond Her Years

Lorde Expressing Existential Emotions Beyond Her Years

Lorde “comes from a land of pioneering women with sometimes perverse perspectives, from the writers Katherine Mansfield and Keri Hulme to the filmmaker Jane Campion,” Los Angeles Magazine contributor Evelyn McDonnell writes in a…

The Dead Lands Provoking Londoners to Travel South

The Dead Lands Provoking Londoners to Travel South

Director Toa Fraser’s latest film The Dead Lands (Hautoa) is one of 10 films from the 2014 London Film Festival “that are sure to see you planning trips to New Zealand, Borneo…

NZ’s Role in Zhivago Affair

NZ’s Role in Zhivago Affair

An unnamed New Zealand diplomat has played a role in the Cold War literary intrigue that became known as the Zhivago affair. It was a New Zealand diplomat stationed in Moscow who smuggled out…

Zane Lowe, Lorde Help Launch Star-Studded BBC Music Initiative

Zane Lowe, Lorde Help Launch Star-Studded BBC Music Initiative

Some of the biggest names in music, including New Zealanders DJ Zane Lowe and singer Lorde, have united to record a cover of the Beach Boys track God Only Knows for the…

Coromandel Ballerina Vida Polakov Wins Genée Gold

Coromandel Ballerina Vida Polakov Wins Genée Gold

New Zealand ballerina Vida Polakov, 16, has danced her way to gold at the Genée International Ballet Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious classical ballet competitions. Simply called “the Genée”, the competition,…

Chatting up Katharine Mansfield

Chatting up Katharine Mansfield

“I like the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield, who according to Virginia Woolf smelt like a civet cat and had a hard, cheap face, and who was the only contemporary writer of whom she…