NZ leading actors/director recognised at APN Symposium

Keisha Castle-Hughes, Temuera Morrison and Stephen Kang were recognised for their extraordinary talents at Sunday’s APN Symposium closing dinner held in Auckland.

The 2011 Asia-Pacific Producers’ Network (APN) Symposium took place over the weekend from 11 – 13 November, with the main forum on 13 November at UNITEC. The event concluded with a farewell dinner hosted by ANZ and Minter Ellison at the latter’s Auckland offices.

It is a tradition that the symposium host country presents awards to a distinguished local actor, actress and director.

The APN Symposium organising subcommittee, made up of APN outgoing President Paul Carran, Film Auckland Chair and CEO Pete Rive and Michael Brook, and Digipost’s owner and general manager Garry Little and Mike Horgan selected the three well-known New Zealanders for creative achievements which have brought them international recognition and acclaim:

• Honoured NZ Actor - Temuera Morrison (presented by Paul Carran, New Zealand, Outgoing APN President)
• Honoured NZ Actress - Keisha Castle-Hughes (presented by Oliver Chen, Taiwan - Taiwan will host next year's symposium)
• Honoured NZ Director - Stephen Kang (presented by CY Lee, Korea, 2010 APN President)

Each received a Lynden Over 'Reed' vase and a Magnum of Marisco Vineyards Chardonnay.

At the dinner, guests were entertained by Pacific vocalist Erakah and community -based Pacific Island performance group FUZION.

The 2011 APN Symposium featured an impressive line up of more than 30 international delegates from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand alongside the cream of the New Zealand production sector and was hosted in New Zealand for the first time by Film Auckland.

Delegates enjoyed a world-class programme of speakers, both international and domestic, discussing production, co-production and post-production in the Asia-Pacific region.
Industry representatives from the NZ Film Commission, Film NZ, Park Road Post Production, Images and Sound and Digipost attended.

Top screen producers including Rob Tapert (Xena:Warrior Princess, Spartacus), Robin Scholes (Mr Pip, Once Were Warriors), Trevor Haysom (In My Father’s Den), John Barnett (Whale Rider), Shogo Tomiyama (Ring, Seven Samurai) and James Choi (Shiri, Taeguki) attended and were part of the discussion panels at the event.

APN was formed in 2005 to encourage co-productions, collaboration and joint projects. The forum offers a chance to develop relationships and generate new projects and partnerships between the film and screen industry across the Asia-Pacific region.

The symposium was made possible with the generous support of core funder Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development, gold sponsor UNITEC, funding partners Film New Zealand, the Ministry of Economic Development, the New Zealand Film Commission and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and bronze sponsors ANZ, Digipost, Images and Sound and Pieter Holl & Associates.

For more information visit www.filmauckland.com/apn