New Zealand

Rhys Darby

Crafty characters and weird sound effects

10 Aug 2009

In case anyone had forgotten which country brought us Bret, Jemaine and Murray from Flight of the Conchords, Rhys Darby aka band manager Murray, opened with a Crowded House song. Grinning like a dolphin, banging his heart with pride and lip-synching…

Taking flight: Rhys Darby

Free from managing New Zealand's third hottest folk-comedy duo - Darby returns

24 Jul 2009

It’s 9am New Zealand time when Rhys Darby answers the phone. His three-year-old son had just left for day care, and finding the house suddenly peaceful again, Darby was signing up for Twitter. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing Twitter,’ he explains, those…

Christine Jeffs interview

25 Jun 2009

Kiwi filmmaker Christine Jeffs (pictured centre right) wasn’t the obvious choice to direct the American indie comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Her previous two features, the New Zealand marital breakdown drama Rain and the British dead poet biopic Sylvia…

Ladyhawke

14 May 2009

‘Well, it’s basically me just flying through the air, shooting cats, avoiding cats, and trying not to die,’ grins Pip Brown, abashedly. Better known as one-woman vintage pop behemoth Ladyhawke, the quietly-spoken, congenial New Zealander is detailing…

Kora

17 Jul 2008

With a platinum album that has spent six months inside the New Zealand top 20 with rave reviews, the Maori brothers that make up four fifths of Kora are on something of a roll. Their sound is a unique blend of reggae/roots/dub/rock for which the quintet…

Janet Frame - Towards Another Summer

19 Jun 2008

Blurring of fiction and fact and the overlapping of character and writer have long influenced the interpretations of Janet Frame’s work. With her writing featuring characters who resembled her and experiences lifted from her life, readers have often…

Take Three: Antipodean Advances

22 May 2008

Tapa Coffee & Bakehouse 21 Whitehill Street, Dennistoun, Glasgow, 0141 554 9981, www.tapabakehouse.co.uk Kiwi Robert Winters is an evangelist for real bread and good coffee, and spreads the word by baking great loaves and brewing a fine cup of joe.

Out of the Blue

8 May 2008

TRUE CRIME (15) 99min (Metrodome) Robert Scarfies Sarkies’ drama based on a real life massacre that occurred in a small New Zealand seaside village, begins with a deceptively gentle and elegiac portrayal of small town life, before its explosion of…

Black Sheep

4 Oct 2007

It was only a matter of time before an enterprising New Zealand filmmaker made a horror movie about sheep. It’s surprising it’s taken this long for one to reach the big screen, and more surprising still, given the inherent low horror factor of lamb…