Watch the top films from this year’s Vista Foundation 48Hours and get a rundown of the award winners from the 2024 Grand Finals.
The Vista Foundation 48Hours has gone out with yet another bang and an absolute banger crowned as this year’s overall winner. A judging panel of industry experts named new-to-the-comp Hamilton team Nuggets as the 2024’s Grand National Champion, with veteran 48Hours competitors Disqualified Tim (Wellington) and Great Lake Film Society (Taupō) taking 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
The competition challenges people across the motu to make a 1-5min short within a weekend using an assigned genre and numerous elements that must be incorporated into the film. The 15 Grand Finalist films, plus the three Sir Peter Jackson Wildcard picks, expressed a wild variety of excellent filmmaking which included a possession foodie rom-com, a floating Finnish Midsommar, a gory marriage proposal, a stylish on-the-run crime drama, an alternate reality Saw scenario, and a Gisborne llama heist.
You can watch the Top 18 films via the 48Hours screening room. See below for the big award-winning films.
Chicken
Grand National Champion supported by WingNut Films + Viva La Dirt League Comedy Award
Team: Nuggets | City: Kirikiriroa / Hamilton | Genre: Splatter
Bursting to the top of the heap like a raging uppercut, Chicken by Nuggets (what a team-title combo) is a KO crowd-pleaser. Centred on two doongies playing Chicken to pass the time, this simple game gets steadily out of control until it eventually explodes into the assigned ‘splatter’ genre. It’s tremendous.
It starts off deceptively simple with static shots, no music, some wobbly sound mix, and no real sense of where the story’s going. Then suddenly, the camera goes wide, the music kicks in, the sound amplifies, the editing becomes frantic, and the film’s excellent leads Tyla Tuala and Arohanui Watene hit the accelerator on one hell of a rivalry—capped with one fantastic match cut. Directors Nopera Watene and Valerie Lui pull off a near perfect propulsion of filmmaking energy to heighten the silliest of premises—a fine-tuned knowledge of escalation that helped make their film a Grand National Champion.
Chicken also took home the Comedy Award, with Viva La Dirt League’s Alan Morrison saying: “It really had a classic 48Hours vibe, we were laughing the whole way through, the fight scene was amazing and intense and there was lots of blood! It was incredible.”
When accepting the award, team leader Arohanui Watene explained how memory card limitations meant they couldn’t delete any takes, Valerie Lui got lost on the way back from costume-grabbing at an op shop, and that some of the hits in the film were real. That DIY scrappiness and willingness to solve and withstand every problem to get a film across the line is one of the biggest virtues any team could have in this competition.
Adding to the classic 48Hours vibe, Valerie Lui mentioned how they entered the competition “just having fun as friends,” like many who give it a go. Nopera Watene chimed in to give thanks to mum and dad for their contribution to the film. It perhaps doesn’t get said enough, but so much of the competition thrives on the support of parents of 48Hours teams.
Sweets
Grand National Runner Up supported by WingNut Films + Best Production Design + Incredibly Strange supported by L’affare (tied)
Team: Disqualified Tim | City: Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington | Genre: Monster
Earning the silver, 48Hours veteran Tim Hamilton removed his teammates and almost all his clothes for this beautifully insane thing of a film. I thought of it as a Cronenberg comedy. My wife called it a Willy Wonka nightmare. Let’s split the different with Cronenbergian Willy Wonka—where Tim is Wonka, Charlie, the Oompa Loopas, the chocolate, and the factory.
Pretty much everything comes from images of his body, mashed up and Picasso’ed through AI programme ComfyUi. As technically impressive as it is wonderfully disgusting, Sweets makes for a great example of AI tools being used to make a film that AI couldn’t have imagined (or most people, for that matter).
Loose End
Grand National Second Runner Up
Team: Great Lake Film Society | City: Te Moana-a-Toi / Bay of Plenty | Genre: Fish out of Water
Taupō collective Great Lake Film Society make the podium with this crafty concept-driven story of a desk worker living in a dystopian society where everyone must keep hold of their string. While printing one of the governmental signs reinforcing this law, the desk worker accidentally drops his line, taking him on a journey through other people’s lives and possibilities.
A seriously impressive amount of work must have gone into their shoot weekend. There are multiple locations, each requiring metres of red yarn representing multiple lifelines. Or is it fates? Conditioned societal expectations, maybe? Loose End keeps the interpretation open, giving it the kind of depth that lingers once it’s over.
Monster State
Best Director + Dame Gaylene Preston and Wift Best Female / Gender Diverse Director
Team: Sad Jackie | City: Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland | Genre: Monster
Julie Zhu took home all the directing awards for this extremely polished, emotionally charged statement of a film. Harnessing a top-tier production across the board, including an incredibly sinister use of a door-knocking sound, Zhu perhaps finds the most strength in her excellent performers Renaye and Elijah Tamati as the story’s mother and son.
At the Grand Finals, Zhu spoke more on how the film came to be: “The idea of the film came from Renaye… she was really keen on us to make something that referenced what the government’s doing in terms of taking away the rights of tangata whenua and other communities with repealing Section 7AA.
“I think it’s timely this week with the report released into the royal commission’s abuse into state care and all the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who have been affected by abuse at the hands of the state. I think as filmmakers we have a responsibility to use craft and storytelling to hopefully make some sort of difference.”
Tender
Best Performer + Incredibly Strange supported by L’affare (tied)
Team: chips cheese cats etc | City: Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland | Genre: The Odd Couple Movie
You wouldn’t think any film could contend with Disqualified Tim’s Sweets for the Incredibly Strange award. Well, consider this the Kong to Tim’s Godzilla.
Look, I’m not even going to describe this one to you because I’m still racking my brain about it. I do know, however, that I love it, with Jordan Mooney and Stephen Lovatt wholly deserving of their acting awards for giving oddly powerful performances to a powerfully odd film. Beautifully shot, with an appropriately jittery edit, this is one hardboiled piece of strange cinema.
The Lurhman Brothers
Team: Berger King | City: Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington | Genre: The Odd Couple Movie
I don’t have the clout to do an honourable mention, but I wanted to highlight Wellington team Berger King’s Grand Finalist film anyway for its quietly compelling storytelling that maximises a minimalist approach to filmmaking—a chilling slideshow compiled of free-to-use archival materials from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Guided with pinpoint narration from Steve Cronin, the film paints an eerie picture of a largely unknown photographer, the images he took, and a township that doesn’t seem to be in the NZ record books. Like the best stories that get under your skin, The Lurhman Brothers spells out just enough to keep the viewer hooked while forcing the audience to fill in the horrific gaps left to history and the limitations of still photography.
Sealed with a haunting final image, writers-directors Esteban Jaramillo, Crosby Allen-Jennings, and Louis Joblin show how an immersive cinematic experience doesn’t rely on expensive tech or production heft—it can come from a smart concept and skilled storytelling.
Other 2024 Vista Foundation 48Hours award winners:
Ant Timpson’s Best Solo/Duo Award: Front Yard – Twotors (Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington)
OPPO48 Award: Under My Skin – Wooah (Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland)
Best School: We Scream – Evil Cutlery (Onslow College) (Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington)
Best Script: Thicker than Water – Jovial Entertainment (Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland)
Best Cinematography supported by Rubber Monkey: Man Hand – Glowtime (Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland)
Best Animation: The secret life of a sloth – Awkward Animations (Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland)
Best Editing: Nightlight – Videoshop (Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington)
Best Sound Design: Dead of the Day – The Good Bits (Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland)
Best Original Score/Song: Lover’s Got the Runs – Pixel Pixies (Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington)
NZ Film-Makers Collective Best Disqualified Film: Redbelt – Mahi Dogs (Wellington via Melbourne)
Grand Finalists
An Evening With – Zero Mum Game
Berger King – The Lurhman Brothers
chips cheese cats etc – Tender
Couch Kumara – Gutted
Disqualified Tim – Sweets
Glowtime – Man Hand
Great Lake Film Society – Loose End (Sir Peter Jackson Wildcard)
Horny Owls – Screw The Pooch
Jovial Entertainment – Thicker Than Water
Kratos – The Long Neck Job (Sir Peter Jackson Wildcard)
Nuggets – Chicken (Sir Peter Jackson Wildcard)
Permanently Confused – Chef’s Kiss
Pixel Pixies – Lover’s Got the Runs
Rabid Aunty Jean – Stage Four Law
Sad Jackie – Monster State
Sports Team – Beware the Kraken
The Good Bits – Dead of the Day
Videoshop – Nightlight
