Boosted Campaign Launches for Anthology Feature

Boosted Campaign Launches for Anthology Feature by Emerging Screen Talent

Park Road Post Partners with Oneshot Collective for Feature Film ‘Encounters’

WELLINGTON, Friday 5th June 2015 - Encounters is a collaboratively made anthology feature film of shorts based on the common theme of chance meetings or encounters from emerging New Zealand filmmakers and produced through Oneshot Collective.

Oneshot Collective was founded by award-winning filmmakers Chaz Harris and Conan McKegg in mid-2014 to create a commercially viable model for promoting new screen talent internationally beyond the arenas of short films and festivals. The filmmakers are now fundraising to complete the film on the Arts Foundation’s crowdfunding platform Boosted.

The line-up of directors includes a 41% representation of female filmmakers compared with the 9% of feature films worldwide that are directed by women. Oscar winner Jane Campion recently called this statistic "completely disgusting and teeth-clenchingly irritating" and wanted New Zealand to be at the forefront of change.

Starring a number of familiar faces, the cast of Encounters includes Siobhan Marshall (Outrageous Fortune), Cohen Holloway (Top of the Lake/Find Me a Maori Bride), Sophie Hambleton (Westside), Ben Fransham (30 Days of Night/What We Do in the Shadows), and Billy T award-winner Cori Gonzalez-Macuer (What We Do in the Shadows).

As part of their ongoing support for emerging filmmakers and the local screen industry, post-production facility Park Road Post have partnered with Oneshot and will be helping filmmakers work with their world-class team of post-production professionals on finishing their shorts and completing the feature.

Each short has been self-financed or crowdfunded by the filmmakers and since its inception Encounters has resulted in the development, production and initial post-production of 12 short film segments. The project has also given new or existing screen talent and film practitioners experience, many of them gaining their first feature film credits in the process.

Oneshot co-founder Harris says, "We've got some fantastic talent in New Zealand developing the kind of stories that can find an audience internationally, but there's very little path-to-market for New Zealanders based outside LA. At A-list film festivals, studio reps are busy covering features so rarely attend short film screenings, so the question is: how do we get New Zealand creatives noticed?"

To date, the project has attracted significant support from equipment sponsor Rubber Monkey, Mojo Coffee and Stephens Lawyers along with a mentorship provided by the Emerging Artists Trust.

The filmmakers today launched a fundraising campaign to raise $20,000NZD to cover the essential discounted costs of post-production finishing and promoting the film. They are using crowdfunding website Boosted, a donation based platform for creative projects offering donors a 33% tax credit. To donate and share visit: http://www.boosted.org.nz/projects/encounters-anthology-feature-film

ENDS

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