Toa Fraser Honoured As Young Alumnus Of The Year

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University of Auckland graduate named Young Alumnus of the Year 2009

Film-maker, scriptwriter and Faculty of Arts graduate Toa Fraser has been named Young Alumnus of the Year as part of The University of Auckland Distinguished Alumni Awards 2009.

Toa will deliver a public lecture, "Animal Tangles: That's the carnal and the heavenly right there", the day after the University's DAA awards ceremony on Friday 13 March.

Toa Fraser is an exceptional young film-maker and scriptwriter. Since graduating from with a BA (English) in 1998, Toa has directed two feature films, written five plays and has been nominated for 16 national and international awards - ten of which he has won.

Toa has worked with major names in the film industry, including iconic New Zealand director Vincent Ward, and legendary actors Ruby Dee and Peter O'Toole. His second-only feature film Dean Spanley, premiered to rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival last October and follows the international success of No. 2, Toa's award-winning screen adaptation of his 1999 play of the same name.

Born in England in 1975, Toa emigrated to New Zealand in 1989, completing a Bachelor of Arts in English, with a minor in Film, Television and Media Studies. In 1998, the same year as his graduation, Toa won the Chapman Tripp Best New Play and Best New Playwright Awards, aged just 23. This was followed by the Sunday Star Times Bruce Mason Award in 1999, and a year as Writer in Residence at the University of the South Pacific.

It was his second play, No. 2, which captured the theatre world's attention, securing the Festival First Award at the 2000 Edinburgh Festival. The play, which tells the story of a Fijian matriarch and her search for a worthy successor, was later adapted for the screen with Toa as writer and director in his debut as a film-maker. Starring the American actor Ruby Dee, No. 2 went on to win the 2006 World Cinema Audience Award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury prize and received numerous other awards at film festivals around the world.

On the strength of No. 2, in 2007 Toa was invited to direct Dean Spanley, a comedy-drama set in Edwardian England which recently premiered in Toronto and London and stars Peter O'Toole, Sam Neil and Jeremy Northam.

Toa Fraser will present his DAA lecture "Animal Tangles: That's the carnal and the heavenly right there" at 12pm on Saturday 14 March at the Owen G Glenn Building (12 Grafton Rd). The lecture is free and open to the public.

For the full DAA Speaker Series programme visit: http://www.alumni.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/template/event_item.jsp?cid=31107

ENDS

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