Loading Docs Wins Best NZ Online Documentary Series

Loading Docs Wins Best NZ Online Documentary Series at the Doc Edge Awards 2016

Loading Docs, the online documentary initiative, won the prestigious NZ On Air Best NZ Online Documentary or Web Series at the Doc Edge Awards 2016. The Doc Edge Gala Awards Night 2016 was held at The Roxy Cinema on the 12 May. Each year Doc Edge celebrates excellence and achievement by presenting local and international awards in various categories.

Loading Doc's Producer Julia Parnell who attended the event said, "We are thrilled to receive this award on behalf of all the film-makers involved in making Loading Docs a success. To get this recognition in our third year of rolling out the Loading Docs program is proof of the outstanding talent in New Zealand, and the desire from audiences to see quality content."

Loading Docs is a unique New Zealand documentary initiative established in 2014 to captivate and inspire audiences as well as develop and promote New Zealand filmmaking talent. The collections from 2014 and 2015 have been viewed over 1,000,000 times across all platforms - some international outlets include CNN Great Big Story, The Atlantic, The Guardian, National Geographic, The Daily Mail and The Japan Times. These little stories are packing a big punch with a long tail.

Through a competitive selection process, Loading Docs selects ten short documentary proposals to create 3-minute shorts, which are then supported from development through to distribution. Working with local and international mentors, Loading Docs filmmakers expand their skills in a range of areas including story development, outreach, publicity and marketing and distribution.

As in previous years, the 2016 Loading Docs shorts are a Notable Pictures initiative, produced by Julia Parnell and Anna Jackson with the support of NZ On Air's Digital Media Fund and the New Zealand Film Commission.

They will be launched online on the Loading Docs website and on TVNZ OnDemand. Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming crowd funding campaigns and for launch details.

The theme for this years' selection is 'change.' This years' Loading Docs shorts will provide viewers with the opportunity to: meet the millionaire who became a shoeshine man, face 'the end of the world' with two teen poets, enter into medieval combat, discover how friendship changes when your best mate becomes a woman and much more. Some films share personal stories of dramatic change, others address major social, political and environmental changes, and all have the potential to change the way viewers think and feel.

Blood Sugar
Dir: Joe Hitchcock
Prod: Morgan Leigh Stewart
Location: Auckland
Four-year-old Dahlia leads us in her bittersweet world of blood, needles and sugar.

Bludgeon
Dir/Prod: Ryan Heron, Andy Deere
Location: Taranaki
Knight-in-waiting Martainn must battle his inner demons if he hopes to achieve his dream of becoming a champion in his beloved sport of full contact medieval combat.

Imagine the World is Ending
Dir/Prod: Doug Dillaman, Brendan Withy
Location: Auckland
Can two schoolboys change the world with a poem?

Same but Different
Dir: Louise Leitch
Prod: Sue Ruffell
Location: Christchurch
Best mates, Byron and Neil, must re-calibrate their friendship when Bryon transitions from a man to a woman.

Street Smart
Dir: Leigh Minarapa
Prod: Nathaniel Lees
Location: Wellington
Being visible in a world that doesn't want to see you.

Mister Sunshine
Dir: Eldon Booth
Prod: Alex Lovell
Location: Auckland
Larry Woods is a shoeshine man on a mission to peddle goodwill and cheer; a far cry from his hedonistic days as a member of Auckland's wealthy elite.

Water for Gold
Dir: Rose Archer
Prod: Sandy Wijetunge
Location: Auckland
An animated conversation with leading legal professor, Jane Kelsey, on how international trade law is leading us to trade water for gold.

How Mr and Mrs Gock Saved the Kumara
Dir: Felicity Morgan-Rhind
Prod: Arani Cuthbert
Location: Auckland
When two young Chinese refugees fall in love in 1955 their passion for each other and the land changes the way New Zealand farms kumara, our iconic indigenous crop.

Aka’ōu: Tātatau in the Cook Islands
Dir: Robert George
Prod: Lucy Cole
Location: Rarotonga
Against the odds an Englishman living with Cystic Fibrosis who has devoted his life to learning the ancient Polynesian art of tātatau (tattoo) and now he must find the right apprentice to continue the tradition, before it's too late.

The Colourist
Dir: Greg Wood, Peter Alsop
Prod: Declan Cahill
Location: Auckland
A photo colourist from the 1950s picks up the cotton wool one more time to showcase the wonderful aesthetic of a lost art.

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