Judith Curran
"Storytelling is everything to me", says Judith Curran. "Some sort of instinctive skill emerges when I see a big creative story taking shape. I think that is possibly my biggest skill."
Curran’s passion for storytelling was forged as a child growing up in Dunedin. She had a keen interest in animals, and cites films like Born Free and early David Attenborough documentaries as early inspirations. "Back in the day there wasn’t really a film school, so I aimed for journalism. I always knew I was going to be a writer of some sort."
She landed her first job as a radio journalist at Dunedin’s 4XO station, after studying English and theatre at Otago University. Two years later she headed over to Sydney for further journalism gigs, then got a foothold in television as a researcher for Chanel 10 show Simon Townsend’s Wonder World (1985-1987). She describes the magazine-style children’s show as "a sink or swim hatchery for wanna-be television producers".
In the late 1980s Curran attended the Sydney Acting School. Soon after, she began writing stage plays while studying theatre writing at the prestigious Australian National Institute of Dramatic Arts. Her second play The Garage Sale won a season at Sydney's Stables Theatre; the third, Dancing Naked Among Roses, featured Cate Blanchett in the lead role. Around the same time, Curran was also working in the story room on some television projects, including John Bach miniseries The Paper Man.
In 1987 she was a researcher on eight-part series The Blue Revolution (1990) — a job which would send her down the path of documentary filmmaking. Curran spent months travelling around the oceans of the world for the series, which delved into our relationship with the marine ecosystem. During this time, Curran realised that "this was what I wanted to do, and spiritually I became very connected to all things oceanic".
The Blue Revolution was the first of many: over the next decade, Curran produced and directed further documentaries for ABC’s Natural History Unit and other Australian television networks. Among the long list was The Lacemaker: An Australian in Paris (1997), which followed Kiwi-born designer Collette Dinnigan, and Doing Time (1999), which took a rare glimpse into two of Australia’s largest women's prisons.
Curran’s first wildlife documentary was produced for series Wild Ones, which aimed to encourage new wildlife filmmakers into the industry. She describes Wee Willie and the Wombat Finishing School (1998) — which she directed, wrote and produced — as the “Born Free of wombats. It followed the rehabilitation of a baby wombat rescued from its mother’s pouch after she was hit by a car. A review in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper called it "an excellent, involving film . . . a love story with all the attendant pain and joy".
Having caught the wildlife-filmmaking bug, Curran went on to produce and write Christmas Island (1999), a multi-award-winning episode of ABC’s Island Life series. Each episode tells the story of a different Australian island, and the wildlife that makes its home there.
Keen to make documentaries for the global market, she began pitching projects at overseas festivals. It was at wildlife festival Wildscreen in Bristol that she was recruited by Michael Stedman and Neil Harraway — co-founders of powerhouse production company Natural History New Zealand. After 10 years in Australia, Curran returned home to Dunedin in 2001 to take up a job with NHNZ. Over the next two decades, she would become a prolific producer at the company, including documentaries for international clients including National Geographic, Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel.
She quickly got busy with NHNZ, directing, writing and producing the series X Force: The Science and Psychology of Extreme Adventure (2001), which she described as “compelling, edge-of-the-seat stories . . . where daring people confront the forces of nature”. Next came seven episodes of Growing Up… (2003); each episode took a close look at a different species, from cheetahs to orangutans.
In 2004 she travelled to Namibia to direct and produce wildlife documentary Super Scavengers. On the last day of a two-month long shoot, on the savannah of a vast wildlife sanctuary, she was attacked out of the blue by Akira, a hand-reared leopard. “He turned suddenly and unexpectedly”, biting onto her right leg. Airlifted to a Johannesburg hospital, Curran flew home to Dunedin after three weeks and six surgeries. She wrote successfully to the wildlife sanctuary, asking that Akira not be put down. He went on to father many cubs.
She continued to produce wildlife content, beginning a long association with The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), which helped fuel numerous documentaries on the endangered orangutans. Orangutan Island (2007-2009) was the first of these. Filmed at the Nyaru Menteng Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Borneo, the series follows the lives of a group of orphaned orangutans at the sanctuary. It created an “explosion of interest” and donations to the BOS foundation.
Producing the documentary impacted Curran profoundly. “I knew this was not just filmmaking for me but a much more important journey. It was August 2009 when I became a true activist." Backed by orangutan zookeepers from Auckland and Melbourne Zoos, Curran contested Cadbury’s modification of their dairy milk chocolate recipe to include palm oil — known for contributing to the deforestation of orangutan habitats. Only a week after she and others met with Cadbury’s managing director, Cadbury announced their decision to remove palm oil from their recipe.
Curran is currently a board member of New York-based Orangutan Outreach and BOS Australia, and a co-founder of BOS New Zealand. She describes her work with orangutans as her “passion project”; she later returned to the orangutan sanctuary in Borneo to make another show.
Curran took on her first executive producing role with acclaimed documentary Love in Cold Blood (2009). The short film chronicled the on-again, off-again relationship of two tuatara in Southland Museum’s captive breeding program. More executive producing roles soon followed, including multi-award-winner Primeval New Zealand (2012), which Curran also wrote. Based on an award-winning episode of Life Force that Curran produced, it travels back in time to examine the origins of the country's weird and wonderful creatures. Primeval New Zealand was awarded a Life Science Award at the Jackson Wild Film Festival.
Curran has had a string of executive producing roles, including the series L.A. Frock Stars , following a Los Angeles vintage clothing store, Redwood Kings, following a pair of woodworking brothers, and three wildlife specials for National Geographic —Savage Island Giants, Wild Dolphins and Penguin Central.
In 2013 she wrote and produced feature-length anti-poaching documentary The End of the Wild. Former NBA basketball player and Chinese star Yao Ming journeys through Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve to investigate elephant ivory poaching — a demand largely driven by China. "He was no actor", says Curran, "but his very real no-nonsense persona made the programme compelling. It got to the younger generation, and is credited with helping change attitudes in China towards ivory and rhino horn poaching."
She returned to oceanic documentaries with three seasons of TVNZ series Our Big Blue Backyard (2014-2016, 2023). Developed for the New Zealand market, it was a ratings hit, diving into the marine environment of New Zealand’s oceans. Curran said what made the series “so satisfying and perfect” was that it had “all the classic storylines of any drama”.
After filming wrapped on Orangutan Island back in 2009, Curran had always hoped to get another shot at the orangutans' story. “I plugged away for 10 years, trying to get another network on board”. In 2017, with Canadian channel Love Nature on board, she returned to Nyaru Menteng to direct and produce another series on the vulnerable species. Orangutan Jungle School (2018-2020) again follows the rehabilitation of the orphaned orangutans as they learn the survival skills needed to return to their natural habitat.
The show ran for two seasons; the first won Best Natural History/Wildlife Programme at the Asian TV Awards. Another orangutan series planned for Netflix was cancelled during the covid pandemic; miniseries Becoming Orangutan screened in 2021. Curran feels "privileged in getting to know so many orangutan individuals over 15 years, and witnessing them succeeding, failing and just being adorable goofballs".
After two decades, her last projects before leaving NHNZ in 2022 were creating climate change series Dynamic Planet and producing the third season of Our Big Blue Backyard. Curran has continued to produce factual content, including Melanie Reid's Newsroom podcast The Boy In The Water, which investigates the mysterious death of three-year-old Lachie Jones.
Profile written by Alexandra Paterson; published on 22 March 2024
Sources include
Judith Curran
Annemaree Bellman, ‘Programs-Wednesday’ - The Age, 18 June 1998
Roy Colbert, ‘Nature’s Best’ (Interview) - North & South, May 2015
Ivor Hayman, ‘Wanaka adventurers given speak preview’, - The Southland Times, 9 February 2002
Anna Pearson, ‘Date with leopard draws film-maker back’ (Interview) - The Press, 25 June 2014
Mark Price, ‘Oops - Cadbury admits it got it wrong’ - The Otago Daily Times, 21 February 2024
Eleanor Sprawson, ‘Call of the wild with human touch’ - The Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2002
Sam Stevens, ‘NHNZ series aids orangutan orphans’, - The Otago Daily Times, 22 July 2008
Kerrie Waterworth, ‘How a leopard changed it’s spots’ - The Sunday Star-Times, 16 October 2005
Unknown writer, ‘Spotlight On: Judith Curran’ - BOS Australia website. Accessed 21 February 2024
Unknown writer, ‘Blue backyard extends to Marlborough’ - The Marlborough Express, 24 July 2015