Monica Brewster Evening September - Dame Gaylene Preston

TUE 9 SEPTEMBER

Dame Gaylene Preston

With two films premiering at this year’s Whānau Mārama NZ International Film Festival, Dame Gaylene Preston will join September's Monica Brewster Evening to discuss her filmmaking practice and new film Grace, A Prayer for Peace about Dame Robin White. Featuring exclusive film snippets, this session offers a rare chance to hear one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated filmmakers reflect on her extraordinary career bringing New Zealand stories to the world.

Dame Gaylene will be in conversation with Nicola Marshall, a creative strategist with two decades' experience in arts and culture across Aotearoa and New York, this is a sharing not to be missed!

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Dame Gaylene Preston is an adventurous, pioneering filmmaker whose work has helped shape the landscape of New Zealand cinema. Known for presenting serious subjects with humour and warmth, her genre-bending storytelling spans feature films, documentaries, and television – including Mr Wrong, Home By Christmas, Perfect Strangers, and Hope and Wire – as well as her Ockham-longlisted memoir Gaylene’s Take. She was the Arts Foundation’s first Filmmaker Laureate, the inaugural recipient of the Documentary Edge lifetime achievement award, and is a SPADA Industry Champion and Premium Moa award winner for services to cinema. A lifetime honorary member of Women in Film and Television (WIFT), she was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019.

Nic Marshall is a producer working across countries, formats, and with audiences of all ages to connect bold, original films with the people and communities they’re made for. Her mahi focuses on supporting filmmakers to reach the audiences their stories have the power to spark, move, and ignite. She is the founder and director of Square Eyes Film Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation encouraging a lifelong appreciation of cinematic storytelling, particularly for young and intergenerational audiences. Nic works alongside the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles, and serves on the Advisory Board for the New York International Children’s Film Festival. A member of Women in Film and Television (WIFT) and Women in Animation (WIA), she was a finalist in the 2018 Women of Influence Awards, Arts & Culture.