FILMMAKERS
James Napier Robertson
Writer, Director
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, James Napier Robertson (Writer, Director) began as an actor in theatre and television before writing and directing a number of short films in his early twenties, leading to his debut feature film, 2009’s I’m Not Harry Jenson. Garnering critical respect for his discerning direction of performance, mood and dialogue, I’m Not Harry Jenson premiered at the 2009 New Zealand International Film Festival, with The Dominion Post calling it “The first New Zealand-made thriller in years that’s actually worthy of the name.”
Napier Robertson’s fascination with dysfunctional, outsider characters, social disorientation and personality disorders underpinned the dramatic tension of the film, a theme he continued to explore in his next film, The Dark Horse, based on the true life story of bipolar chess player Genesis Potini. An avid chess player himself, Napier Robertson spent a lot of time with Genesis, playing hundreds of games while discussing the man’s struggles with mental illness and working on the script.
Opening the 2014 New Zealand International Film Festival before premiering at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, The Dark Horse was a commercial and critical hit, receiving 5 star reviews from all major critics and grossing over $2 million at the New Zealand Box Office. The Australian called it “outstanding…a work of the highest artistic excellence,” while Variety stated it “exceptional…the most deserving cinematic export to emerge from New Zealand in years,” and the National Radio Review declared it “one of the greatest New Zealand films ever made.”
Napier Robertson won New Filmmaker of the Year at the 2014 Spada Awards, and The Dark Horse went on to win Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Score at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards. In 2015, The Dark Horse continued to garner awards internationally, including accolades at Rotterdam, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC, Dublin, Asia Pacific, Art Film and Palm Springs International Film Festivals.
Tom Hern
Producer
Tom Hern (Producer) was recently recognized as a Future Leader in Screen International’s special Cannes 2015 edition, heralded as one of the top emerging producers from around the globe.
Thirty-year-old Hern has produced three feature films. First, the microbudget-whodunnit-thriller, I’m Not Harry Jenson, which was funded entirely through private investment and was released theatrically in its home country of New Zealand to critical acclaim in 2009. Secondly, the eerily provocative festival darling, Everything We Loved, which he made with writer/director Max Currie in 2012 and 2013. And third, The Dark Horse, the gritty based-on-a-true-story-drama which recently became a box office smash (NZD$2M) and audience fave in its home territory of New Zealand before launching internationally at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film received fantastic reviews and sold to all major territories around the world.
The Dark Horse has gone on to win a number of awards at top film festivals including Audience Awards at the Rotterdam, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC and the Palm Springs International Film Festivals, and will be launched theatrically in the the US by Broad Green Pictures in December 2015.
Hern also produced the short film, Lambs, in 2010 which played at a number of top film festivals around the world including Clermont Ferrand, Berlin Generation and Melbourne, and won a number of awards including both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2011.
As lead producer on The Dark Horse, Hern won the Moa-award for “Best Film” at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards.
Hern was a member of the prestigious international jury for the Berlin Film Festival (Generation Section) in 2015 and currently sits on the board of New Zealand Film trust, Script to Screen.
Denson Baker, ACS NZCS
Director of Photography
Denson Baker ACS NZCS is a New Zealand born cinematographer, raised in Australia and currently based in Los Angeles.
Baker has won international awards for his feature films, music videos, short form work and commercials, as well as having his films win awards and have premieres at some of the most prestigious film festivals including Berlin, Toronto, Cannes, Tribeca, Sundance and Rome. His feature film credits include The Black Balloon, Oranges & Sunshine and The Waiting City.
Denson has the honor of being accredited by both the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), and the New Zealand Cinematographers Society (NZCS).
The Dark Horse is a special film for Baker, reconnecting him with his Maori heritage as well as being a part of a remarkable filmmaking experience.
Baker’s next project is Measure of a Man with frequent collaborator, director Jim Loach.
Kim Sinclair
Production Designer
Kim Sinclair (Production Designer) was born in Auckland in 1954, and grew up in Kohimarama. He was educated at Auckland Grammar and the University of Auckland, graduating with an Honours degree in Architecture.
After a period as a builder, he began working as a set designer and since then he has art directed movies for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron, Zack Snyder and Peter Jackson – amongst others.
In 2010, Kim received a BAFTA and an Academy Award for art direction on the movie Avatar.
His career mixes art directing large offshore productions with production designing projects, including several New Zealand feature films. In 2014, he production designed two New Zealand feature films: The Dark Horse which won Best Film at the 2014 New Zealand Film Awards, and Slow West which won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2015.
Other feature films Kim has designed include: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (directed by Steven Spielberg), Under the Mountain and Black Sheep (both directed by Jonathan King), Alex (based on Tessa Duder’s novel), Her Majesty, which won the Best Production Design award at the 2001 New Zealand Film Awards, and The Climb starring John Hurt (Unicef Prize at 1998 Berlin Film Festival).
Kim has also art directed a number of large feature films, shot on location in New Zealand or around the world. These include Man of Steel (shot in Illinois and Vancouver), The Legend of Zorro (filmed in Mexico), The Last Samurai (shot in Taranaki), Beyond Borders (Thailand), Castaway (Fiji), The Vertical Limit (the Southern Alps) and Willow (Queenstown).
Kim has also worked as a VFX Art Director on jobs including The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies. Additionally, he has production designed television commercials for clients including K•Swiss, CocaCola, McDonald’s, MasterCard, and Samsung.
He still lives in Kohimarama with his partner and daughter. Kim’s time is divided between Auckland and wherever his work is. His interests include cycling, watching movies and reading science fiction.
Peter Roberts
Editor
Peter Roberts has been in the film and television industry for nearly forty years. He started as a gopher in Soho, London, but quickly realized that arriving on set at dawn was not his forte. Instead he managed more sensible working hours (sort of) by finding his passion and place in the film editing rooms of London. Moving to New Zealand (after marrying a Kiwi) at the end of 1985, he feared there would be little or nothing for him in those early days of the country’s industry, but was lucky enough to be signed up to edit Alison MacLean’s short film Rud’s Wife the day after he arrived.
He then spent five years at TVNZ, trying his hand in every department he could. In 1992, shortly after TVNZ became a state-owned enterprise and NZ On Air was born, he became freelance again and invested in the first Avid editing system in the country. His 1990s were spent editing a mix of documentaries, commercials and short films, and during the last decade and a half he has brought more drama projects into his oeuvre. In 2014, he edited the drama feature film The Dark Horse, documentary feature Hip Hop-eration, and the short film Dive, all of which won Best Film in New Zealand, and he was nominated as Best Editor in all three categories.
Peter is the first editor president of the Directors and Editors Guild of New Zealand, and is a director of RPM Pictures Ltd, a boutique post-production house in Auckland.