The Team

Gwen Isaac grew up in Kororāreka Russell in the Te Tai Tokerau Far North region of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Her remote childhood and her single mom upbringing, contribute to the characters and stories she is drawn to.

Gwen spent a decade creating television formats and directing factual and documentary series for broadcasters in the UK and USA. Highlights include Summer at Yorkminster for BBC Scotland, Heroes Unmasked for NBC USA, The Real Washington for BBC World News and Old Dogs, New Tricks for ITV London as part of the prestigious Metroland series.

Where There is Life (2017) her debut feature documentary was selected for the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival. It was described as “startling in its candour” and she was awarded Best First Time Director at the London Independent Film Awards.

In 2021 Gwen released short documentaries Tokyo Woman (selected for four international festivals) and Siouxsie & the Virus which was awarded best film in the Long Story Shorts Competition. Gwen leads the Bachelor of Screen Arts (Hons) factual major at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts, Toi Rauwhārangi.

Currently, Gwen is developing two projects; feature ‘Mad Merry’, a documentary investigating a childhood mystery set in 1980’s Te Tai Tokerau and a docu-series about the brassiere.

Alex Reed (Bloom Pictures) is a creative producer of documentary and drama content. She started her career working with Ken Loach on films including Land and Freedom, My Name is Joe and Bread & Roses and since then has written, researched or produced over twenty factual and drama projects commissioned in New Zealand. In 2019 Alex produced multi- award-winning web series, Jessica’s Tree and returning to film she co-produced Leanne Pooley’s social impact film The Girl on the Bridge and genre-bending feature, There’s No “I” in Threesome (HBO Max Original). Most recently she released David Farrier’s 2023 box office hit, Mister Organ, an incredible true story of psychological warfare.

Phillida Perry is a creative producer with a legal and business background.

She is co-founder of Daughter Screen Company with Gwen Isaac.  In 2020 she produced award winning short documentary Siouxsie & the Virus through the Loading Docs, Revolution series.

She co-produced Elinor Teele’s short drama Pulling Up Stumps releasing mid-year 2023 staring Ian Mune and Mark Mitchinson. 

Her short film Kunst about an all-women art buying group is set for release in 2023. Phillida is developing for screen Tracey Slaughter’s novella The Longest Drink in Town with writers Tracey Slaughter and Liam Hinton. 

She has various other factual and drama projects in play including a series drama based on her family history in Taratahi Agricultural Training Farm, in liquidation (2018), (established 1918).

John was born in the UK but moved to NZ as a child. After returning to the UK and studying architecture at the University of Liverpool, he attended the NZ Film and Television School in Wellington.

Documentary (Where There is Life), short film and commercial work followed, along with a move to Sydney where he has been working on further documentary and TV projects (Siouxsie with an X, Stories of Bike).

David Long composes and performs music.

In 2023 he has composed for Auckland Festival of the Arts, The Savage Coloniser Show and Tupua Tigufua’s dance show Little Bits and Add Ons for the NZ Dance Company. In March, Rattle Records released a chamber orchestra piece I’ll Hum the First Few Bars.

In 2022 he released the album Ash and Bone through Rattle Records. In 2022 he also scored Loren Taylor’s feature The Moon is Upside Down and Paul Oremland’s Mysterious Ways. He won best TV score for the BBC series, Mystic, with Steve Gallagher. In 2021 he scored the feature film Punch, composed score for Tupua Tigafua’s dance show, Ciggy Butts In the Sand and won best score for the TV series, The Luminaries. With Plan 9 music he created ‘cultural music’ for Amazon’s, The Rings of Power.

David was a founding member of The Mutton Birds with whom he made three albums. He also plays in the bands The Labcoats and Teeth. Since the late 1990s David has been writing music for film and television, alongside playing in bands and composing orchestral music. He has composed scores for over twenty feature films including McLaren (for which he won the APRA Silver Scroll award for Best Original Music), The Ground We Won, 25 April, 6 Days, Gardening with Soul, Beyond the Edge, and additional score for Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. For the The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey he wrote (in collaboration with Plan 9 Music) ‘Misty Mountain’. He wrote music and created musical sound design for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong (also with Plan 9 Music).

https://www.davidlongnz.com/