It’s already February, and a day off to boot for some, although it feels in some ways as if 2026 hasn’t really got into gear yet. That’s odd, given that there have been things happening – some of them quite big, like dating the general election and Mt Maunganui becoming less than it was in horrific circumstances – and, more specifically industry-related, the sale of Auckland Film Studios and 33 fraud charges being laid this week against someone who’s unlikely to be in a rush to come back from America to face them.
Various festivals, industry organisations and guilds are filling up the calendars with events and deadlines, and Awards Season is under way in the US with NZ participation at several ceremonies – mostly by Wētā, admittedly – but somehow we haven’t felt much of a sense of impetus yet, of things driving forward that will make 2026 a better year for the industry than 2025.
There are, of course, productions in development, prep, production and post. There’ve been a couple of local titles premiere at Sundance, four at Santa Barbara (which opened earlier this week), a world premiere for Pietra Brettkelly’s Crocodile at the Berlinale coming next month, and plenty of festival selections to come here when Māoriland announces its 2026 programme.
NZ films in cinemas are mostly finishing their runs, and Mārama, Holy Days, Tenor: My Name is Pati and No Tears on the Field all arrive in cinemas in the next seven weeks.
It’s certainly not that nothing’s happening – and many of the things happening are positive and worth celebrating on an individual level. But there isn’t – as far as we’ve felt – any buzz about the broader state of affairs, whether or not the industry will look any better by the end of the year than it did last December.
Our suspicion or fear is that the industry’s old enemy, uncertainty, will screw things up again this year. Nobody knows at the moment who’ll be the government by the end of the year, which is about as uncertain as it gets given that virtually nothing of any scale gets made here without government support in some shape or form. Nobody knows what the Budget will bring or take away but the current coalition will try to improve its chances of re-election – and more money for the screen industry and screen content aren’t traditionally vote winners.
It’s a fair bet that no local theatrical releases this year will go anywhere near Tinā’s performance last year. As Avatar: Fire & Ash’s somewhat disappointing box office performance illustrates, even the biggest of the big can’t be relied on to deliver the returns they used to.
The year is, of course, only a twelfth over. There’s plenty of time for momentum to build, for ideas to coalesce and become something cohesive and positive, for a rising tide to lift all the industry’s boats. For now, it feels like the best we can do is to celebrate the individual achievements, to support the work that’s coming to screens by watching it and encouraging others to do the same.
Not everything in the industry is a numbers game, just the things that matter. With so many decisions these days about so many things being data-driven or (if you’re lucky) merely data-informed, we should be doing what we can to get those numbers up – especially viewing numbers. It’s increasingly hard to make a strong case for funding a future project if the viewing numbers for previous ones don’t tell a positive story.
We need to do a better job of cheerleading the industry’s achievements and output.
We won’t argue that a win for one is a win for all. That’s horse-shit at best. A win for one is almost always because that one did a great job, usually against considerable odds. But that win will be bigger if the rest of the industry is cheering it on.
If we find enough things to cheer, maybe they’ll start to coalesce into something bigger than the sum of the parts, something that builds momentum, something that pulls other things along as well.
If we as an industry don’t find things to cheer, that uncertainty and unwillingness to commit will see us end 2026 with less than we started the year. Which will make 2027 a steeper hill to climb. Making the effort to watch more local content would be a pretty good start, and a habit to improve – especially for those who want others to watch their work.
