Danny Boyle! Zoe Bell! Sam Neill! The Rialto Channel New Zealand Film Awards, popularly known as The Moas, were held just down the road from Letterboxd HQ on Saturday, 18 February 2017. We were proud to sponsor the Best Production Design category, because we like good design. Congrats to Kiwi legend Kim Sinclair for his winning work in the category for Slow West.

Eligible films included the local box office smash hit Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Scottish director John Maclean’s Slow West, which was filmed in New Zealand and produced by New Zealander Rachel Gardner. The eligibility period was wider than usual because, New Zealand being a smallish country, we sometimes have to wait to amass enough local films to hold an awards ceremony.

The full list of feature and documentary film winners is here. Congratulations to all of the nominated and winning filmmakers!

Huge congratulations also to writer, director and producer Gaylene Preston who was honoured with the Services to Cinema Award on the night. Gaylene is our film industry’s much-loved godmother, and she received a fitting introduction from Sam Neill, fresh from a Best ing Actor win for his work as Uncle Hec in Hunt for the Wilderpeople and one of the stars of her 2003 film Perfect Strangers.

Introducing the award, Neill said his friendship with Preston goes “back to the middle of last century, which is actually sadly but literally true. That’s kind of handy because it would be awkward to give this award to someone you didn’t actually like.”

Neill said Preston “is someone who’s had (and continues to have) a long and fruitful career, and has contributed to New Zealand cinema as much if not more than anyone I can think of… Someone who’s received about a dozen New Zealand film awards. Actually, I wrote here, that’s a dozen more than me. It’s actually 11 more than me, now. I’m amazed that I got assistant actor, because when you’re cast in a film with all those bloody scene-stealers… Anyway, I got it, so they’re not getting it!”

Concluding his intro, Neill said Preston has been “a great mentor and a friend and a collaborator to so many of us in the world of film here, to crew to cast, and particularly to women. [Her] work has resonated on so many different and profound levels… She is the quintessential New Zealand storyteller.”

You can watch Sam’s intro and Gaylene’s moving acceptance speech at 2:06:00 in T2: Trainspotting) and stuntwoman Zoe Bell!