Barry Thomas

From activism to art, Barry Thomas has contributed his rebellious creativity to many communities. At 16-years-old he helped out on pioneering te reo drama Uenuku, then trained in camera at the National Film Unit. Later he majored in painting at Ilam School of Fine Arts. With his company Yeti Productions, Thomas directed and produced commercials, documentaries and short films, and spearheaded the rADz/One Minute Wonders series, which ran locally and in the United Kingdom. The rADz ("radical art ads") aided young, emerging filmmakers in the creation of super-short films, which were celebrated for their unbridled creativity. 

I always swung between these different worlds. Rather than getting into making features, I went the opposite way and got shorter and shorter. Barry Thomas on the rADz short film scheme, in an interview with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, 5 October 2021