Big Name from a Small Place
“Growing up in a small country on the other side of the world, a young girl named Kimbra Lee Johnson did what she said almost every New Zealander does – dream big,” Michael Bialas…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Big and Small Comparisons
In an appearance at the Mipcom conference in Cannes, New Zealand director Jane Campion explained that she was attracted by the creative freedom in television, in comparison to film. Campion was at Mipcom to…
Storytellers Converge
In an image from the Guardians’ “best news pictures of the day”, New Zealander Metini Mitai Ngatai poses prior to the official opening of the book fair in Frankfurt. The world’s largest book…
Wilkommen in Frankfurt
With New Zealand the Guest of Honour at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel showcased the country in its Sunday magazine section. “Whenever one thinks of New Zealand, one thinks about kiwis, sheep,…
Through a Pacific Lens
Auckland poet Courtney Meredith, 26, was at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week for the launch of her debut book Brown Girls In Bright Red Lipstick. Meredith has been described as leading a generation…
Challenging Perceptions
Academic and literary biographer Joanne Drayton who spent many of her formative years in Christchurch in the shadow of the infamous Parker/Hulme 1954 murder case, recounts the story in The Search for Anne Perry. Bestselling…
Is This Place for Real?
“The hill is perfect – steep, shaggy and as green as a radioactive shamrock, like the matching hills around it,” The New York Times describes. “The sheep seem pretty idyllic themselves: polite little nibblers who only…
Jackson a Digital Mandarin
Director Peter Jackson, 50, features at No. 22 on Vanity Fair’s 2012 ‘The Powers that Be’ List, which names the “top 25 mandarins” in the digital world. “A decade removed from his $3 billion Lord…
Dubrovnik Standout
War Photo Limited is a gallery in Dubrovnik, Croatia curated by New Zealand-bred photojournalist Wade Goddard, who covered the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s. The gallery, which features images of “the city’s fraught…
Pleased to Meet Him
“Flying Nun is as synonymous with indie rock in New Zealand as Chemikal Underground is in Glasgow or Creation Records is in London,” John Everhart writes in a web exclusive for American magazine Under the…
Making the Right Moves
Now a veteran globe-trotting performer at the ripe old age of 22, Kimbra seems to be making all the right moves, Bill Locey writes for the Ventura County Star. “Lurkers, assorted geeks a gawkin’ and editors…
Mapping Our Souls
Titahi Bay-based tattoo artist Mark Kopua, 52, explains the meaning of t? moko in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allegemeine. “I don’t have to say who I am … you can read it in…
Call It an Evocative Scowl
Joe Dredd, played by New Zealand actor Karl Urban, 40, “is meant to be the most fearsome judge – but we don’t get to see many more of his kind around,” USA Today’s Claudia Puig writes…
Possums Take Tennessee
New Zealand string band the Johnny Possum Band will perform at the Music on the Square festival in downtown Jonesborough, Tennessee on 28 September. Kingsport Times-News describes the band: “The roots of bluegrass music may lie…
Taia o Moko
Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, author of Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo and essayist and commentator on Maori and feminist issues in New Zealand, memorialized the Maori Queens’s death by taking a traditional facial tattoo….
Hitting ‘Em With Enthusiasm
“Kimbra throws every angle of modern fem-pop at the wall with such ball-lightning enthusiasm that all of it sticks,” the Guardian’s Mark Beaumont writes in a review of the New Zealand singer’s London performance at…
In Transit Amongst Spies
Auckland singer Gin Wigmore, 26, stars alongside James Bond star Daniel Craig in a new interactive television and digital ad campaign for Heineken and the latest 007 film, Skyfall. Wigmore wrote the ad’s theme song…
Wonderful Piece of Theatre
New Zealand playwright Catherine Downes’ The Case of Katherine Mansfield, which was on in Glebe as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival, “is a simply wonderful piece of theatre — the kind that makes you…
Memories of New York
Wellington-born artist and actor Susana Lei’atua’s exhibition Wall of Light, on at New York University’s Kimmel Center through 28 September, is a “memorial for the everyday nature” of New York showcasing how the city…
Talking of The Small Screen
Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning New Zealand director Jane Campion will attend the international television market MIPCOM next month in Cannes, France to talk about her first small-screen foray, the new series Top of the Lake….
Actually Rocking The Bowery
“ gorgeous, sweeping power ballad ‘Cellophane,’ had it been released 25 years ago, would have moved entire rooms to slow dance, and I’ve got to assume only unfamiliarity held Bowery Ballroom’s crowd back,” Katherine…
Work in Progress
West of Memphis was produced by the Oscar-winning team of Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who enlisted filmmaker Amy Berg, herself an Oscar nominee for the documentary Deliver Us From Evil, to make their own film…
Mister Pip Premieres
New Zealand-born writer-director Adam Adamson’s film adaption of Lloyd Jones’ prize-winning novel Mister Pip, starring Hugh Laurie, has premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto as part of the city’s annual film festival. Laurie…
Cry Over This
Crowded House song Together Alone is what British music blogger Paul Sinclair wants played at his funeral. Sinclair chose the track as part of the Guardian series ‘Six Songs of Me’. “The…
How Good an Actress She Is
New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey is the “highlight” of Hello I Must Be Going writes Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan, who says she “shines as the film’s focus.” “If you…
Now at Centre Stage
The other half of the Heavenly Creatures duo, Melanie Lynskey, 35, has been working consistently in Los Angeles for a decade. Lynskey is perhaps most well-known in America for having appeared in more than…
Writer Tells Stories in Berlin
New Zealand novelist and short story writer Paula Morris was a guest at this year’s International Literature Festival in Berlin on from 4 through 16 September. Morris read from Rangatira, which is based on episodes…
Artist of the Week
“Born in New Plymouth, in 1976, the now London-based Upritchard grew up in a hippy environment where the local hub of crafters and alternative therapists was offset by the oil industry,” Skye Sherwin…
These Kids are Feeling Good
A song written by The Flight of the Conchords to raise money for medical research for children, soared straight to No. 1 on iTunes within 90 minutes of release. Their song, Feel Inside (and…
Award-winning Silence
New Zealand comedian Sam Wills, 34, who’s solo act The Boy with Tape on his Face has been filling the 700-seat Pleasance Grand theatre since the Edinburgh Fringe Festival started, as won…
This Way for a Laugh
Auckland-born Rhys Darby, 38, features in the Guardian’s ‘Portrait of an Artist’ series in which he talks about his best experience performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at which this year Darby staged This…
Snapping Up the Roles
Former Wellingtonian actress Chelsie Preston Crayford, 25, says her career move to Sydney was not about culture or leaving for a bigger city. In fact, given the choice, she would live back in the…
Brilliantly Immature
“Bounding along without a care in the world, this New Zealand band are aptly named,” the Guardian’s Michael Cragg posts in the website’s ‘New Music’ section. “If the joyously carefree and brilliantly immature Baby…
Soundtrack to Youth
New Zealander Luke Yeoward, frontman of Melbourne-based band the King Cannons, talks to The Sydney Morning Herald about the inspiration for the group’s debut album, which was released in June. Drawing on…
Real Presence in NY
“ is one of the sharpest writers and arrangers in his field, and while the music is airy by design – because that’s what indie-pop is – Milne’s arrangements have…
It’s the Cat’s Whiskers
Auckland’s private Kristin School recently secured the rights to the world renowned musical CATS, spending $85,000 on its annual stage production. Executive principal and show producer Peter Clague said the big-budget show would rival…
Pint-sized Nude on Plaid
“A weirder, more diffuse sense of humour animates an assemblage by New Zealand-born, London-based Francis Upritchard,” the Los Angeles Times ‘Culture Monster’ describes in a review of the three-artist show ‘Bush of…
Settling the Score
“Jane locked me in a hotel room with a piano and said she wouldn’t let me out until I’d finished,” British composer Michael Nyman, explains to the Guardian about his task to complete…
New Zealand a Place of Healing
West of Memphis, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by American filmmaker Amy Berg, has had its premiere in Wellington as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival. The…
Locking with the Lopez Crew
Twenty-year-old New Zealand hip-hop dancer Parris Goebel has been hired by chart-topper Jennifer Lopez to choreograph moves for her upcoming world tour. Goebel has also appeared with her ReQuest dance crew mates on the…
Scripted Insanity
Wellington-born actress Kerry Fox, 46, best known for her early films, including Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table, Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and Michael Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo, is in rehearsals for the…
Pounui Cameron’s New Pandora
“It was ultimately New Zealand’s contemporary film culture that persuaded James Cameron to shift his work life, in stages, toward the Southern Hemisphere,” Pete Nikolaison writes for The New York Times. “New…
Ten Bands You Should Know
“If your knowledge of New Zealand’s music scene doesn’t extend beyond Flying Nun Records and Flight of the Conchords, then rejoice — there’s a shitload of excellent local music just waiting to be discovered,”…
Mansfield Stories Uncovered
Four previously unknown stories written more than a century ago by Katherine Mansfield have been discovered by Chris Mourant, 23, a PhD student at King’s College London. Any new material by Mansfield, who had…
Dreamscapes Helps Children
Auckland visual artist and art educator Vivien Masters is collaborating with New York’s Brookdale Hospital in July as part of her international non-profit art classes for seriously ill children, the
Raising the Frame Rate
“Peter Jackson raised the bar for fantasy popularity 11 years ago with the first of three Lord of the Rings films,” Brian Truitt reports for USA Today. “With his latest J.R.R Tolkien adaptation, he…
Modern Medieval Creatures
Fans of the peculiar will be intrigued by New Zealander Francis Upritchard’s exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary which sees mythical creatures take over the gallery, This is Nottingham writes. Almost life-size figures by…
Writing Like a Virtuoso
New Zealand author Sarah Quigley’s latest novel The Conductor “reads like a proper up-all-night page-turner, but it also goes deeper than that, conveying the extraordinary life-saving properties of music, and hope,” Guardian reviewer Bella…
Portable Home on Sleds
Auckland’s Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects have designed a macrocarpa-clad hut made with a requirement that all structures be removable. The hut measures 40 square metres and rests on two thick wooden sleds…
Reggae Royalty Play US
Katchafire continue their North American tour with stops in Canada, California and Guam before returning home to New Zealand with their Back to the Roots Tour through August. “There’s a load to bear when…
Solitary Homage to Storytelling
Queenstown-based artist Ivan Clarke’s book Alveridgea and the Legend of The Lonely Dog, co-written by with Stu Duval, is being developed as a feature film, with independent producer Jeff Kleeman. Clarke, previously best known…
Blissfully Witty Trappings
“On his third album as Lawrence Arabia, Christchurch native James Milne perfects the project’s defining balance of dry, writerly wit and classic pop blitheness,” Doug Wallen writes for Mess and Noise. “The…
Out of Step with Her Peers
“Gin Wigmore, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter from New Zealand, is a one-off,” Paul Lester of the Guardian declares, introducing Wigmore as ‘New Band’ No 1305. “Utterly unique. A maverick who dares go against the grain,…
Herald Goes Weekday Tabloid
The New Zealand Herald will switch to a tabloid format for its weekday issues from September. In announcing the move, the Auckland-based broadsheet spoke of undergoing “the biggest transformation in its 150-year history”. Martin…
Steeped in Melancholy
Former New Zealand-based author Kapka Kassabova’s latest “odyssey” Twelve Minutes of Love begins “in the enthusiastic, though limited, tango scene in Auckland” continuing across “three continents in search of the perfect dance (or ‘tangasm’).”…
Story Without Compromise
“I don’t think I’ve read any fiction that marries the strengths of the short story and novel quite as adeptly, and without compromise, as Emily Perkins’ The Forrests,” Sydney Morning Herald journalist and author…
