Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington
Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington region includes teams from across the lower North Island, from Wellington City and the Hutt Valley to Kāpiti, Wairarapa and beyond.
Known for its screen industry and creative community, the windiest region is home of 48Hours HQ and has produced the largest number of teams for the last few years.
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.
Thomas is currently producing their first feature film, Paloma Schneideman’s debut feature, Big Girls Don't Cry, which had its world premiere in competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. It has since screened at SXSW, BFI: Flare and TIFF: Next Wave and will be the Opening Night Film of Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival.
Email Thomas
Regional Final
Wednesday 23rd September
The Embassy
6:30pm – Theatre and Foyer available for pack in and guest arrival
7:30pm – Show begins
TBC – Intermission
10:30pm approx – Show ends, guests depart
Heats
Massey University National Academy of Screen Arts Cinema - Block 10, Old Dominion Museum Building
Friday 4th September \\ 5pm - 9pm
Saturday 5th September \\ 2pm - 9pm
Sunday 6th September \\ 2pm - 7.30pm
The heats schedule will be updated with session times as soon as we're ready to announce.
Judges
Betsy Bauer
Betsy Bauer is an award-winning editor, colourist and producer currently working as the Senior Media Producer at the legendary Wētā Workshop. With a career spanning acclaimed television series (Wellington Paranormal, Kid Sister, Little Apocalypse), feature films (Shut Eye, Deathgasm, Avatar: The Way of Water), shorts (Cleaver, Smog, Kōkako), and snappy short-form content, she thrives on combining technical craft with creative storytelling.
Betsy has competed in the 48Hours Film Competition six times and knows firsthand the chaotic magic and collaborative brilliance it brings out in filmmakers. She’s also served as a jury member for both national and international film festivals, and is excited to return to the 48Hours competition as a judge - this time with the luxury of sleep!
Awa Puna
Awa Puna is a whakawāhine director, writer, and actor of Ngāti Kahungunu and Tūhoe descent whose work explores identity, transformation through bold, emotionally resonant storytelling. She and her team's Z-Grade styled film, Death Blade Tiger 5, won Best School Team at 48Hours in 2017. Since graduating from Toi Whakaari in 2020, her screen credits include Whina, Shortland Street, and The Boy, the Queen & Everything in Between.
As a screenwriter, she has written for Rūrangi (Season 2), Testify for Warner Bros. and all of her directed projects. Her accolades include a nomination for Queer Māori Representative of the Year at the NZ LGBT Awards and a Best Shorts Award for Emerging Talent at the New Zealand International Film Festival for her short film TŪĪ.
Ashleigh Roworth
Ashleigh Roworth is a Producer based in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara who cut her teeth in filmmaking in commercial video production.
In 2022 she produced the short film ‘Mary Mary’ (Director: Ella Gilbert) through the Someday Stories initiative. In 2023, Ashleigh crowdfunded the short documentary 'Preventing the Preventable' (Director: Brooke Benton) about cervical cancer testing in Aotearoa, which was released through The Spinoff. Her more recent short films include 'A Very Good Boy' (Director: Samuel Te Kani), which was funded by A Wave In The Ocean and premiered at the Venice Film Festival and ‘Yes David’ (Director: Ghazaleh Gol), funded by Toi Whakaari. She has produced music videos for Dick Move, Bret McKenzie, Deva Mahal and Gin Wigmore.
Ashleigh has just returned from Dublin where she spent 6 months working for Keeper Pictures.
Fifi Colston
Fifi Colston is a graduate of Massey University Visual Communications Design majoring in illustration, and holds a Master of Creative Writing specialising in scriptwriting through the IIML at Victoria University, She is an award-winning junior fiction writer and children’s book illustrator of more than 50 published titles. She also works in the TV and film industry making costume and props in addition to being a multiple award-winning World of WearableArt designer with 30 finalist entries in show since 1995. Fifi is very active visiting schools and community groups, inspiring budding artists and writers through workshops in creative process.
Rachel Fawcett
Rachel Fawcett (she/her) is a Chinese-Kiwi producer and founder of Lusty Productions—a multi-media company focused on creating obsessions and connections through female-centric stories.
Rachel launched her career as a co-producer on Friday Night Bites s2 from writer-director Roseanne Liang, before cutting her teeth as the producer on various short films including; Munkie (Steven Chow), Wind, Song and Rain (Matariki Bennett), Anu (Pulkit Arora), and the NZFC Catalyst-funded short, Chrysanthemum (Jolin Lee), all of which toured festivals globally.
Alongside Victoria Boult, she co-created the hit TikTok series, n00b, and served as producer. In 2024, she produced and released its network adaptation, which was released in NZ on Three and Three/Now, as well as Netflix AU, and CANAL+ in France. That same year, Rachel co-created, storyline and produced the NZOA-funded YouTube web series, Literally Dead, alongside K-Ci Williams.
She's currently working as an associate producer on the NZFC feature film, Shearing the Love, from director Tom Hern, and as producer of the short action film, Bodyworker, from writer-director Roseanne Liang. This year, she was nominated for Achievement in Television/Digital at the WIFT Awards for her work on n00b.
Chia Chi Hsu
Chia is an editor based in Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland), originally from Taiwan. She had the pleasure of working with veteran and award-winning filmmakers where she explored her own creativity as well as acquiring well-rounded editing skills. Her credits includes THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (short), premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, as part of A Wave in the Ocean collection, a filmmaker program headed by Jane Campion; CROCODILE, a documentary feature, by Pietra Brettkelly, premiered at Berlinale early this year and continued its festival success around the world with the most recent stop at Tribeca. And Chia’s first drama feature BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY will soon open the 2026 New Zealand International Film Festival after its amazing festival runs including Sundance. As a first time judge she is just as anxious, excited and pumped as the participating filmmakers, and can’t wait to see the whacky, outrageous, daring works that are to come!