A “raunchy and sexually charged” scene in an episode of Home and Away shown on TV3 at 5.30pm breached three broadcasting standards, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found.

An ultra low budget home-crafted documentary has taken out two prestigious trophies at the 2010 Qantas Awards. This Way of Life won Best Director – Documentary for Thomas Burstyn and Best Arts/Festival/Feature Documentary at the event on Saturday. This follows a gushing review in international film bible Variety, where it describes the film as “A [...]

See http://www.spada.co.nz/conference/2010/NF_of_the_Year_EntryForm_2010.pdf

The winners of the 2010 Qantas Film and Television Awards were announced tonight during a star-studded Awards Gala at The Civic in Auckland. Rick Friesen, Awards committee co-chair and New Zealand Television Broadcasters’ Council chief executive, noted that the Awards had become the calendar highlight for the film and television industries. “The Qantas Film and Television Awards provide the opportunity for our industries to step back, assess the year’s work and celebrate best practise. Every year, the bar gets set higher, but the work being produced continues to exceed expectations.”

The Government announced today that New Zealand will complete the switch to digital television by 2013. ‘’In achieving DSO by the end of 2013, all of New Zealand will receive the benefit of enhanced reception, better picture quality and more channels. There will be a substantial wider economic benefit generated by the use of freed up spectrum for new technology,” says Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman.

Pioneering New Zealand filmmaker Rudall Hayward, whose credits include building a revolutionary new camera from spare car parts, takes star billing at a new exhibition opened Friday 17th September at Auckland Museum. As producer-director- writer-cinemaphotographer, Hayward covered such historic moments as the 1934 Waitangi celebrations and numerous royal visits, and now he is the subject [...]

  The New Zealand Film Archive has described its four-year programme Saving Frames as a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to save crucial taonga of New Zealand’s film history. Formally launched this evening by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Hon Chris Finlayson, at the Film Archive in Wellington, the project will identify the most endangered New [...]

This November the Show Me Shorts Film Festival celebrates its fifth birthday; claiming its place as a regular anticipated fixture on the national film festival circuit.  Festival Director Gina Dellabarca says, “Selecting our programme line up this year has been the toughest and most rewarding yet due to increased numbers of entries from filmmakers with [...]

Two local commissions will screen in TV One’s new season of Sunday Theatre.
The premier drama slot returns on September 19 after being off-air for most of the year and, while still to be scheduled, confirmed for the slot are the NZ-made Spies and Lies and Nights in the Garden of Spain.

Prime TV’s resurgence continued in August, with the channel notching up a record primetime share of viewers five-plus: 6.6% compared with 5.3% a year earlier.
While 5+ numbers may not excite media buyers, they indicate the Sky-owned network’s increasing reach through stronger, more consistent scheduling, adult-oriented programming and its belated availability on Freeview.

A horror weekend at the box office is seeing locations and sessions for Predicament slashed after opening on 51 screens just two weeks ago.
From Thursday to Sunday, it grossed only $16,680 on 49 screens, to earn a mere $340 average – and suffered the worst week-on-week decline of any release in the top 20: 71.4%.

Finalists in the inaugural Scriptwriters Awards will be announced on October 16.

It’s expected there will be three in each of the nine categories but this will depend on how many nominations have been received by the September 17 deadline.

Friday’s DVD release of the record-breaking NZ movie, Boy, comes just days after it racked up one of the highest screen averages in Australia.

Taika Waititi’s coming-of-age comedy/drama grossed A$275,026 on 41 screens in its opening weekend across the Tasman.

Predicament’s prospects of topping $500,000 at the local box office seem a long shot after an opening, four-day weekend gross of only $58,396.

Thinking Cactus, a Christchurch based software company, has had its animation software ‘Voovees Director’ used in the Star Wars Uncut movie winning an Emmy Award last week. Indy Liu, one of the founders of Thinking Cactus said “we are really excited that ‘Voovees Director’ has been selected to create part of the movie and even more delighted Star [...]

NZ Equity is petitioning its members to go online and register their support for a binding industry-wide contract between SPADA and all actors working on NZ movies and TV programmes.

It would replace The Pink Book guidelines with minimum conditions of employment comparable to those across the Tasman, but with rates of pay and residuals based on the NZ market and the financing of NZ productions.