The 3-minute documentary extravaganza, Loading Docs, is back with a host of new Kiwi micro-stories to tell revolving around a theme everyone can relate to: Change.
From more submissions than ever before, a panel of industry experts have selected 10 incredible new projects. This year’s 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.
See the full list of projects below, and check out previous years’ crops of shorts.
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.
The Impeccable Larry Woods
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.
