Briar Grace-Smith

Briar Grace-Smith, ONZM, has written for stage, page and screen. The Listener labelled her 1996 play Purapurawhetu "a new classic of New Zealand theatre". It was later filmed for TV's Atamira. After writing for Being Eve and Mataku, Grace-Smith created quirky TV movie Fish Skin Suit. In 2010 she won a NZ Scriptwriters Award for feature film The Strength of Water, then worked on the scripts of Billy T James TV movie Billy, Margaret Mahy TV series Kaitangata Twitch and movie Fresh Meat. After contributing to 2017 film Waru, she began co-directing an adaptation of Patricia Grace novel Cousins, alongside Ainsley Gardiner. 

I’m probably telling the same story again and again, and it’s something about the underdogs. They’re the characters that interest me. Briar Grace-Smith, interviewed in Turbine, October 2003