Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington
City Manager
Your Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington City Manager is Thomas Coppell.
Thomas Coppell
Thomas Coppell (they/them) is a proud Hutt kid, producer & storyteller passionate about empowering rangatahi and under-represented humans to make cool screen art. They have extensive experience producing factual & scripted content for big and small screens, substantially for rangatahi, the young at heart, and the rainbow community. Their producing credits include two NZIFF NZ’s Best Short finalists, most recently, teen drama Gate Crash, and four NZ On Air funded series; including Little Apocalypse, New Zealand’s first children's drama by, for and about rainbow young people currently available on TVNZ2 & TVNZ+. Thomas also co-wrote and co-created the series.
Contacts
Email Thomas
Call Thomas on 027 741 1967
Heats
All heats in 2024 will be screened online so teams can watch all entries.
Wellington City Finals
Date / time - Friday 5th July, 8pm
Venue - Embassy Theatre, 10 Kent Terrace, Mt Victoria, Wellington.
Judges
Mia Maramara
Mia Maramara is a Filipino filmmaker with work that has screened both locally and internationally. Her passion for authentic, trailblazing stories has led her to wear different hats in the industry, most notably as a writer and director.
She most recently wrote and directed Beyond the Veil: Albularyo for TV2, which earned her the distinction of being the first Filipino director to helm a prime-time drama on New Zealand TV. In 2021, she won the SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year.
Mia recently wrote for anthology feature film Kāinga, the third film in the trilogy of Waru and Vai, which has gone on to screen at the New Zealand International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, and Hawaii International Film Festival. Her feature film Grafted, co-written with Hweiling Ow, was recently picked up by UK-based sales agent Mister Smith Entertainment.
Mia has participated in Philippine National Artist Ricky Lee's Cinemalaya Masterclass as well as the Directors and Editors Guild Female Director Incubator.
Armağan Ballantyne
Born in Aotearoa, Armağan studied film making in Prague her award winning short films have screened at festivals around the world including Venice, Berlin, New York, Telluride, Palm Springs and Melbourne.
Along with screenwriter Briar Grace-Smith she attended the Sundance Lab with her first feature THE STRENGTH OF WATER.
Her latest film NUDE TUESDAY recieved a 5 star review in the Guardian and earnt five nominations at the AACTAS Awards.
Armağan has recently directed an episode for Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s latest series TIME BANDITS for Paramount.
Ben Powdrell
Ben Powdrell is a writer, producer, and editor with 20+ years of experience in television and feature comedy and drama and documentary. He most recently edited the comedy drama series MILES FROM NOWHERE (Sky Open/Neon) and feature comedy RED WHITE AND BRASS (Piki Films). Ben is the writer and lead story editor on the animated series LITTLE BIG THINKERS (Rascality Studios) and is currently developing animated series STINKY PITS (Floating Rock Studios) and BLOKE OF THE APOCALYPSE (Suite Habana Productions). Ben has competed in the 48hrs intermittently in various teams over the years, making it to the Wellington and National Finals and credits entering the 48hrs with helping to land himself the editor role on Emmy and Qantas award winning series Reservoir Hill, way back in 2010.
Ramon Te Wake
Ramon Te Wake (Te Rarawa, Ngati Whatua) – is a writer, director, producer actor and singer songwriter with more than 20 years in the TV industry. She works in both the drama and factual world. She is the creator of the comedy series The Boy The Queen And Everything In Between which screened on TVNZ+ in 2024. She is the co-director of the critical and commercial success, Inky Pinky Ponky (2023). And she Executive Produced Transgenerations, best web series winner at the Berlin Short Film Festival in 2023.
She is one of the first trans woman to present, direct and produce content in Aotearoa. Ramon has created hundreds of stories with a strong focus on Māori, queer and the marginalised as the backbone to her extensive catalogue. Ramon’s first presenting/directing job was in 2004 for Māori Television, where she fronted the award winning show Takatāpui the world's first indigenous queer series.
In 2024, Ramon directed Season 2 of Queer & Here and the long awaited documentary, Trans & Pregnant is scheduled for release in September on TV1. Currently, she is in development for a feature length documentary, Denied – 50 Years Of Gay Pride in Aotearoa.
Rachel Fawcett
Rachel Fawcett (she/her) is a Pakeha-Chinese producer from Auckland, New Zealand. She launched her career as a co-producer on Roseanne Liang’s award-winning series, FRIDAY NIGHT BITES (season 2), and in 2020, produced Steven Chow’s award-winning short thriller, MUNKIE.
In 2021, Rachel launched her production company, Lusty Productions with actor and producer, JJ Fong, which focuses on female-centric storytelling and uplifting pan-Asian voices in front of and behind the camera. Under this banner, she has produced the Te Reo Maori short Loading Docs documentary, WIND, SONG AND RAIN, plus the Hindi-language short drama, ANU, from Indian writer-director Pulkit Arora, which made its international premiere at MIFF.
In 2022, she co-created and produced the hit TikTok series, N00B (supported by the NZOA/Screen Australia/Tik Tok Every Voice initiative), and served as Associate Producer on the feature film biopic, JOIKA, a NZ/Polish/US/UK co-production which stars Diane Kruger and Talia Ryder, set for NZ release May 16, 2024.
Rachel has recently completed production for her NZFC-funded Catalyst short, CHRYSANTHEMUM, with writer-director Jolin Lee, and is currently in post-production on the half-hour version of n00b with Great Southern Television.