Rebecca Tansley

Rebecca Tansley was running a Dunedin restaurant when she entered a scriptwriting contest. Tansley won a spot, and Māori Television drama The Waiting Game (2008) was filmed in the restaurant. A year later she made her first short, Eden. In 2015 she directed and produced music documentary Crossing Rachmaninoff, which featured at several international film festivals. In 2018 she turned her hand to dance, with behind the scenes doco The Heart Dances - the Journey of The Piano: the Ballet. Tansley has also captured an NZ Opera performance of Semele, handled publicity for NHNZ, and written a tie-in book for NHNZ series Big Pacific.

There was a period of weeks when I was like, ‘What was I thinking, this is not going to be a film, I’m out of my depth, I’m going to have to tell these people who gave me money that I can’t do this.’ But then it all started falling into place. Rebecca Tansley on editing feature-length documentary Crossing Rachmaninoff, Metro, 19 July 2015