SHORT CUTS LAB

Project: Rakhi Bandits

PRODUCER

Marianne is a Kapampangán-Filipino theatre and film practitioner based in Auckland-NZ. She is a graduate of Unitec’s Bachelor in Performing Arts Majoring in Screen and Theatre Acting and is Proudly Asian Theatre’s executive creative producer and co-founder of Te & Kuya Collaborative. She works to empower and authentically represent Asian voices in film and theatre.

Project: Rakhi Bandits

DIRECTOR/WRITER

Mayen Mehta is a graduate of The Actors’ Program. Screen acting credits include Shortland Street, Fresh Eggs, The Bad Seed, and Power Rangers. He has written for kids animation series Tales of Nai Nai in which he also composed music for. He was selected to help storyline for several stage productions including TEA and A Frickin Dangerous Space-mas. Mayen was also one of the head writers for a team that got shortlisted for the Pasifika and Asian development programme initiated by script to screen in partnership with NZOA last year. Currently, Mayen is working as a script consultant on a romantic comedy feature film written by Chye-Ling Huang.

Project: Something in the Air

PRODUCER/WRITER

Ankita Singh is an Auckland based screenwriter and award-winning theatre producer hailing from Chandigarh and Kirikiriroa. She is currently working at Notable Pictures on TV3 series Arranged and The Hustle. She is an advocate for creating international relationships between Asian and NZ after completing an internship at CJ Culture Foundation in South Korea. As a South Asian New Zealander, Ankita is passionate about diversity in the media and advocating for minority representation in front of and behind the camera.

Project: Something in the Air

WRITER

Aman is a writer and actor who has been working in theatre and screen since starting his journey as a writer and performer in Tom Sainsbury ‘s “The Foreign Monologues” in 2011. His short play “Dhoti baba” won the Best Comedy Script award at the 2015 Short + Sweet Festival in Auckland. He next wrote “AI East” directed by Tom Sainsbury which won the Emerging Artist award at the 2016 Short + Sweet Festival. His most recent writing credit was for the short play, “Manpreet’s Degustation Menu” which was a finalist at the 2019 Short + Sweet Festival and was also a writer and host on the youth current affairs web series “DBrief” that was funded by Radio New Zealand for The Wireless.

Project: Four Words

DIRECTOR/WRITER

Isaiah is a bit of a jack of all trades, he can produce, direct, shoot, write, edit and animate. Isaiah’s first funded film, A Life Like This was as a part of the 2017 Someday Stories series. It was showcased at festivals like the 2018 Cambodia International Film Festival, DC Shorts International Film Festival, and the Maoriland Film Festival. His second funded short film, Losing my Language (2018) was made as a part of The Wireless Doc series. Isaiah has worked commercially and corporately for brands such as KFC, HP, Discovery, Genesis, MediaWorks, and The Spinoff.

Project: Four Words

PRODUCER

Born and raised in Auckland (with a stint in Kuantan, Malaysia), Puteri has a Masters degree in Screen Production from the University of Auckland. Upon graduation, she went on to work as an Animation Producer, before joining visual effects house Cause+FX as their VFX Producer in 2021. On top of her “day job”, Puteri has been involved in a number of short films, music videos and web series in various production roles. In 2020, she produced the short film Blue Ecks for Someday Stories S4 and production managed Loop Track, an indie feature film from Tom Sainsbury & Chillbox Creative.

Project: Gibberish

DIRECTOR/WRITER

Pulkit Arora is a writer-director based in India and New Zealand. In his screenwriting career of five years, he has created and led the writing room for an upcoming series on Disney+, written an episode of Home Stories for Netflix India, and developed a drama biopic in collaboration with Rainshine Entertainment. He also writes and hosts Still Awesome, a film dissection series for Netflix's YouTube channel. His directorial debut, Milk Toffee, is scheduled to play at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021, apart from selections in other leading festivals in Athens, Dhaka and Mumbai.

Project: Gibberish

PRODUCER

Rachel is an Auckland-based Chinese/Pākehā producer. Since co-producing Friday Night Bites season 2 helmed by writer/director Roseanne Liang, Rachel continued her partnership with the Flat3 team during the 2019 Pasifika and Asian Development Programme run by Script to Screen, where Lullabies was shortlisted. In 2020, she worked alongside producer Belinda Lee Hope on the NZFC-funded short film, Impossible, where she served as associate producer. Rachel also solo produced the short thriller, Munkie, directed by Steven Chow and starring Xana Tang. Rachel is currently producing the Loading Docs short doco ‘Wind, Song & Rain’, directed by Matariki Bennett. She’s also collaborating with fellow PASC members on a number of short film scripts and funding applications, as well as developing a feature treatment for Munkie with Steven Chow. Rachel is passionate about driving diverse stories centred around female POC, and is particularly interested in producing feature films.

Project: Whatever it Takes

WRITER/DIRECTOR

Nimish is an award-winning author and a screenwriter whose first feature screenplay ‘Meiktila’ – was shortlisted as a finalist of Cinestaan - India’s national screenwriting contest and his first mobile short film titled ‘Room 306’ has been acclaimed in various film festivals. A self-taught screenwriter, Nimish aspires to write meaningful and successful cinema that engages, impacts and inspires. He is happily married and settled in Auckland where he lives with his beautiful wife.

Project: Whatever it Takes

PRODUCER

Reshma entered the TV & Film industry in 2019; gaining a placement at Film London’s Equal Access Network to support the production team at Two Brothers Pictures, which makes acclaimed and popular shows like ‘Fleabag’ and ‘Liar’, before working as a Production Assistant on short film ‘Trust Me Babydoll’ and Sky/HBO series ‘The Third Day’. As well as being a PA, I am crafting my screenwriting practice and continue to maintain links with the UK screen industry, as marcomms officer for SAFTAC (South Asians in Film, TV & Arts Collective), which works to increase visibility and diverse representation in the industry.

Project: Egg Fried Rice

WRITER/DIRECTOR

Dennis is an actor who started writing after quickly seeing the significant lack of opportunities as an Asian performer. He became enamoured by how his seemingly independent stories related to so many audiences, not just Asians, and could act as a vessel of unity. Dennis was selected for Script to Screen's South Shorts this year where he currently receives writing mentorship. He aspires to be a successful multi-hyphenate filmmaker with a mission to tell stories that otherwise wouldn't be told, and to bring people together. Dennis is excited for this opportunity to learn from and be inspired by like-minded people.

Project: Egg Fried Rice

DIRECTOR

Yin Yee Low is an aspiring filmmaker born and raised in Malaysia. She moved to New Zealand four years ago in hopes of being able to tell more stories here. As an Asian, LGBT+ creative, she hopes that by adding her voice and her story to the industry, there will be many who will see and hear her story and be inspired by it the way she has been by the recent wave of Asian stories in television and film.

Project: Egg Fried Rice

PRODUCER

With a large interest in the media industry growing up, Kanita went on to study Communications, majoring in Film and Screen Production at AUT University. With the goal of wanting to become a producer, she made her producing debut with the short film “Little Faith” in her third year. Since graduating, Kanita continues to search for projects that could share a story from a diverse background in hopes to help bring it to life and further her experience in producing. Kanita is nervous but excited to step into this opportunity and learn from fellow filmmakers.

Project: Egg Fried Rice

PRODUCER

Moving from Malaysia to her adoptive home of New Zealand to further her skills and knowledge in the filmmaking industry, Priscilla made her production debut in her final year university film; the psychological short “What We See”. Wanting to ensure representation for the Asian community, she adds her voice to those who have come before to tell the stories that have until recently rarely had a chance to shine. Apart from her full-time job, Priscilla also uses her talents as a sound engineer and background artiste in other projects to give herself a more diverse overview of the filmmaking process.

Project: Rice Run

Director/WRITER

Graduate from the University of Auckland, BFA/BA in Screen Production. Pon Torthienchai is a Thai-New Zealand writer & director whose films primarily explore familial affection and the family dynamic within the Asian domestic space. Best known for his short films Brother (2018) and Majesty (2019), he is drawn to a transcendental style of filmmaking which emphasizes the imposition of silence and relies on body language and mood. Aside from narrative, Torthienchai also works in the field of video installation where he has an interest in the use of duration and repetition of imagery through a tableau aesthetic.

Project: Rice Run

PRODUCER

Kelvin Ta is a 25-year-old, Chinese Cambodian born in West Auckland. Graduating from Accounting and Finance, he had an office job but quickly realized it wasn’t for him. As an introverted kid he grew up watching heaps of movies, so he decided to pursue his passion which was Film and specifically seeing three-dimensional Asian characters on screen. This led to acting in late 2018 in a short film called Majesty where he met the director/writer Pon Tortheinchai. So, although he has no experience in producing, he’s interested in learning and connecting Asian creatives to collaborate on a meaningful script.

Project: Pool of Mirrors

DIRECTOR

Angeline has worked in the screen industry for many years, balancing screenwriting with key roles in art department. She co-wrote the feature film ‘My Wedding and Other Secrets’ and was a writer-director for the TV3 series ‘A Thousand Apologies’. She has story-lined and written for television and worked on several features in their development phase. She is currently collaborating as a writer/director on an anthology feature in development. Angeline relishes bringing together creative and technical aspects to create films that connect on an emotional level and is drawn to stories that explore ideas of identity and belonging.

Project: Pool of Mirrors

WRITER

Poata Alvie McKree (Ngapuhi, Ngati Kahu ki Whangaroa, St Vincent, Barabados) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and arts therapist. She is committed to telling stories that foster connection to the earth, the ancestors, other peoples, and the divine. This manifests variously through writing for live performance, facilitating therapeutic art and movement workshops, offering ritual and ceremonial gatherings for women, and using performance and textile-based installations to reimagine the lived experiences of the ancestors as a means of healing the rifts in cultural identity caused by colonisation, migration, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. From 2013 until early 2021, Alvie taught at Elam School of Fine Arts simultaneously honing her writing skills developing her first performance Black Maori Girl and her play-in-progress, The Handlers, with the support of Black Creatives Aotearoa and Playmarket NZ. She currently devotes her time to storytelling projects and facilitating bilingual therapeutic art and movement workshops for women.

Project: Pool of Mirrors

PRODUCER

Alyssa Medel-Khew is an emerging Filipino-New Zealander creative working in both screen and theatre, she is passionate about visual storytelling as art and activism. This year sees the release of her writing and directorial debut on screen, with "Three Dots" as part of ANZF’s In Touch Arts Commissions, and as director for "Mekeni" with Someday Stories. In theatre, she is a producer for Proudly Asian Theatre having co-produced "Fresh off the Page" and "Fresh Developments" 2020. She is also a historian undergoing postgraduate studies, with her interest focused on American imperialism, and the history of Filipino identity and political thought.

Project: Slow Lane

WRITER/DIRECTOR

Raised in West Auckland from a Chinese immigrant family, Beyond is a writer/director who enjoys telling extraordinary stories in creative ways. He completed his Masters in Screen Directing with First Class Honours at the University of Auckland in 2012. His thesis film, The Education of Ming Ming, was the winner of the Geoff Evans Memorial Prize for Excellence in Screen Productions. Beyond has just completed his most recent short film, A Guide to Becoming a Detective, made with funding from the New Zealand Film Commission.

Project: Slow Lane

PRODUCER

Crystal was born in China and moved to New Zealand with her family at the age of 9. She graduated from the University of Auckland with double degrees, majoring in Psychology and French under Arts, and Accounting and Commercial Law under Commerce. It was a French Film course that ignited her interest in film. While still inexperienced with the film industry, Crystal is an eager and fast learner with a profound interest in increasing Asian representation in film and media. Her experience as an auditor and consulting accountant will undoubtedly come in handy when dealing with budget and allocation as a film producer.