Director: Ainsley Gardiner

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Biography: Ainsley Amohaere Gardiner is a film producer from New Zealand. She is of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Awa descent. In 1995, Gardiner completed the Avalon Film and TV production course, and went on to work with producer Larry Parr at Kahukura Productions. She began producing short films, and also co-produced a 26-part series Lovebites. In 2003, she produced her first feature film, Kombi Nation, and co-produced Two Cars, One Night with Catherine Fitzgerald. The film, directed by Taika Waititi, became the first New Zealand short to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film. In 2004, Gardiner and actor/producer Cliff Curtis formed a film production company focused on indigenous stories, called Whenua Films. The company received start-up funding from the New Zealand Film Commission. Gardiner worked with Curtis and Waititi to produce Tama Tū, Eagle vs Shark and the highly successful Boy, which set a new record for the highest grossing New Zealand film. In 2007, Gardiner began co-presenting Iti Pounamu, a Maori Television series showcasing New Zealand short films. In 2009 Gardiner wrote and directed Mokopuna, a short film about a part-Māori girl who struggles to embrace her roots; the film won the best short film award at the Canadian indigenous film festival Dreamspeakers. In 2017, Gardiner joined a team of women directors and writers to create the feature film Waru, which focuses on child abuse in New Zealand. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ainsley Gardiner, licensed under CC BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Boy

Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee criminal father, who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years ago.
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7.4
Boy
The Breaker Upperers

Two women run a business breaking up couples for cash but when one develops a conscience their friendship unravels.
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5.2
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The Breaker Upperers

2018

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Eagle vs Shark

Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After gatecrashing Jarrod's party and proving her skills on the game console, Lily goes down to Jarrod's home town with him so he can settle an old score with a past school bully.
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6.5
Eagle+vs+Shark
Eagle vs Shark

2007

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Night Raiders

The year is 2043. A military occupation controls disenfranchised cities in post-war North America. Children are property of the State. A desperate Cree woman joins an underground band of vigilantes to infiltrate a State children’s academy and get her daughter back. Night Raiders is a female-driven dystopian drama about resilience, courage and love.
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4.7
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Night Raiders

2021

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Two Cars, One Night

Sometimes first love is found in the most unlikely of places, like in the carpark outside the Te Kaha pub.
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6.6
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Two Cars, One Night

2004

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Red, White & Brass

Maka, a Tongan superfan, will do whatever it takes to get tickets to the Tonga v France Rugby World Cup game - even if that means promising to deliver a brass band for the pre-match entertainment. Only problem is, the band doesn't exist and Maka has four weeks to make one. Inspired by a true story.
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6.9
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Red, White & Brass

2023

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Reunion

A pregnant woman returns to her recently-deceased grandparents’ old family home to spend time with her estranged mother. What begins as a tenuous reunion slowly turns terrifying.
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6.2
Reunion
Cousins

Connected by blood but separated by circumstances, three cousins spend a lifetime in search of each other.
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6.9
Cousins
Waru

Eight Māori female directors have each contributed a sequence to this powerful and challenging feature which unfolds around the tangi of a small boy who died at the hands of his caregiver.
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6.8
Waru