REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor Ahead of opening night, I caught up with director Grace Augustine to talk about reimagining Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for present-day Aotearoa. You can read that interview here. She told me the production was motivated in part by increasing nitrate contamination in our freshwater, and by a desire to create political theatre that asks audiences to think critically about the systems gove

REVIEW | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Trevor Pronoso | Letterboxd: @CleverGurl | Instagram: @trev.pro | Contributing Writer With Hasan in Gaza (2025) dir. Kamal Aljafari France / Germany / Palestine / Qatar / Switzerland, 106 mins Within the first 30 minutes of this film, I could already tell the differing cinematic temperaments of director Kamal Aljafari and his tour guide, Hasan Elboubou. Throughout With Hasan in Gaza, Kamal would often instruct Hasan to take

REVIEW | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist The first UniFest short film competition resembles the kind of combination between creative outlet and filmmaking practice which I would have adored during my studies. It’s reassuring to see a body of undergrads wishing for the same, taking that into their own hands – run by the students, for the students. Each entry was held down by only two creative constraint

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Isabella den Boogert (they/them) | @belladbb | Contributing Artist Isabella den Boogert is a multidisciplinary artist who works between the mediums of sculpture and printmaking. They explore the internet-driven culture of performance, self-presentation, and identity in the digital age, using text and found objects as tools for exploring culture. Often delving into the rabbit holes and dark trends of the internet and pop

REVIEW | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Associate Editor It’s taken Paolo Bertolin, the New Zealand International Film Festival’s artistic director, a couple of years to find his footing away from the prestige of his homeland of Italy to the bonkers reality of New Zealand’s film industry. While the government struggles to comprehend the value of anything less than the millions generated by Peter Jackson and Taika Waititi as

REVIEW | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Trevor Pronoso | Letterboxd: @CleverGurl | Instagram: @trev.pro | Contributing Writer Out of the Blue (2006) dir. Robert Sarkies Aotearoa New Zealand, 103 mins During the post-screening Q&A, actor Matthew Sunderland shares something remarkably revealing when asked about the process of getting into the character of David Grey: that it was relatively easy to understand the psyche of David because most of what he needed to kno

INTERVIEW | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by James A. Glass (he/him) | @magicalflamebow | Contributing Writer In today’s video game climate with big studios pressing down on consumers, it’s important that we champion independent creators and studios. I talked with Dave Oshry, CEO and co-founder of New Blood Interactive (NB) where he discussed how the studio operates, what he considers indie, and the current game dev landscape in Aotearoa. James: How does New Blood support dev

INTERVIEW | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Micheal McCabe in conversation with Skye Lunson-Storey (they/them) | @uku_rangi | Arts, Culture, & Te Ao Māori Editor Rendered Futures: Drawing Architecture was an exhibition curated by Micheal McCabe and Kim Paton. Held in 2025 at Objectspace in both Tāmaki & Ōtautahi, it charts five decades of architectural drawing in response to today's stylised digital render. Skye: Rendered Futures as an exhibition, quote, "brings together drawings from

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Millie Lies Low (Michelle Savill, 2021) As everybody’s third or fourth choice for a Commonwealth nation — including ourselves, judging from how many of us move to Australia — it’s perhaps not as much a mystery where all the self-diagnosed ‘imposter syndrome’ in New Zealand comes from, especially if you’re competing with your colleagues for the best opportunities. The

Nostalgia in Aotearoa, New Zealand’s Screen Production ARTS & CULTURE | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written By Ivy Lyden-Hancy (she/her/ia) | @tekaraipiture | Contributing Writer “Trees. Birds. Rivers. Sky. Running with my Uncle Hec. Living Forever...” - Ricky Baker on Hunt for the Wilderpeople Moe mai ra, Sir Sam Neill (Uncle Hec) 1947-2026 Nostalgia in Aotearoa is a memory carved into the bones of our people. Māori and Pasifika screen production holds our mamae through media. No

FEATURE | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Associate Editor Between the corporate skyscrapers of Wynyard Quarter sits Media Design School at Strayer, the polytechnic that has spent the century so far cementing its place in the resumes of animators, game developers, and designers. From an outsiders perspective, it does the trick - like the other creative schools across Aotearoa, the amount you put into your education determines what you

COMIC | ISSUE SEVEN | MATARIKI Created by LoverLotus @withatouchofameteor

THE HOT LESBIAN | COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by This Week’s Hot Lesbian, Wren Probett (she/her) @inkdogshirts | @hot_lesbian_initiative | Contributing Lesbian What could possess someone to wear a shirt that reads “Gay Dog” or “Dyke”? What must go wrong in a person’s life, for them to spend hours carefully carving those words from linoleum? Of all things, why a shirt? I mean, are you planning on wearing that on the bus? At the mall?? If you’ve seen my sh

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Jana Nee (she/her) | @jahncreates | Contributing Writer The darkroom in my high school art class was my creative haven. At sixteen, I spent most lunch breaks there, developing negatives from my film camera. I made strange, carefully staged images of fish heads with doll bodies. There were no creative constraints, and I embraced that freedom, experimenting and finding my voice through art photography. I learned to mix ch