Matthew Metcalfe

Christchurch-born Matthew Metcalfe grew up “really poor” in Canberra, after time in Papua New Guinea. The army offered a way to see more of the world (Metcalfe did time in both Australia and New Zealand), although ultimately he "really only saw a lot of the back country of both nations". While completing a Commerce and Applied Mathematics degree at Auckland University he grew increasingly interested in film, after taking bit acting parts on stage and screen. 

Plans to join the Royal Australian Navy were permanently bypassed after Metcalfe promised young filmmaker Jesse Warn he'd find a way to get Warn’s script for short film 9 Across on-screen. The result won Warn an award for Best Contribution to a Short at the 1999 NZ Film and TV Awards. Metcalfe took five years to pay off the $5000 loan which represented his share of the film's production costs.  

By now Metcalfe was working on shorts and music videos during the day, and surviving via a host of night jobs: waiter, shelf stacker, cinema usher. Eager to gain experience, he entered the foyer of radio station bFM and announced he’d make a music video for any band with $1000. Metcalfe produced videos for Shihad and Hayley Westenra, and in 2001 produced the Tui Award-winning clip for Che Fu hit Fade Away, which saw the band dressed as Māori Battalion soldiers. 

Meanwhile Metcalfe and Warn were learning about filmmaking together. Their training regime included two further shorts, a TV series about band Steriogram, and a dozen trips to the United States to drum up interest. Finally they struck a deal with Canadian company Lionsgate for their first feature, Nemesis Game. An NZ $6 million co-production between Canada, England and NZ, the mystery thriller revolved around a woman (Canadian Carly Pope) caught up in murder, as she attempts to solve a series of complex riddles. Nemesis Game was nominated for multiple NZ Film Awards, including Best Film, Director, and Screenplay.

Metcalfe and Warn parted ways during the extended development of follow-up The Turkmen, which finally hit screens as The Ferryman. It was a busy time: alongside developing the script for this “study in fear”, Metcalfe was developing shorts, and travelling extensively for a series of television projects, most involving military topics. In 2005 he produced globe-trotting series Air Force, about the Royal New Zealand Air Force. The following year he appeared on camera alongside his father Frank in one-off documentary Vietnam - My Father’s War. The two returned to Vietnam 35 years after Frank had fought there during the Vietnam war. 

Metcalfe was also beginning to direct documentaries, starting in the danger zone of Baghdad. Soldiers of Fortune (aka Iraq - Kiwi Guns for Hire) follows private security forces operating in the city. He also helped develop feature-length doco Relocated Mountains, which chronicles a Kurdish refugee's trip from New Zealand back to Iraq.

The Ferryman was released in 2007, selling to 30 international territories. By then Metcalfe and fellow producer Alan Harris were winning interest for a very unusual project: English shaggy dog tale Dean Spanley, starring Sam Neill and Brit screen legend Peter O’Toole. Metcalfe had fallen in love with Alan Sharp’s 45-page adaptation a decade before; eventually he managed to persuade the veteran Scottish scribe to expand it to movie length. Metcalfe tapped Toa Fraser to direct, impressed by his handling of the dinner scene in No. 2, and the film’s feel for family. Dean Spanley scored rave reviews and seven Qantas awards, including Best Director and Best Feature (budgeted at over $1 million).

Since then Metcalfe has been a producer on another four features with Fraser — Giselle, The Dead Lands, and two films in 2017: British hostage drama 6 Days and extreme sports film The Free Man.

Giselle captures the Royal New Zealand Ballet of the same name. It debuted at the 2013 NZ International Film Festival. Fraser and Metcalfe then reconvened for te reo, pre-Euro action movie The Dead Lands. Hollywood Reporter reviewer Deborah Young called it "a remarkable film experience", thanks partly to rich visuals and "intensely involving" performances. Metcalfe is an executive producer on the 2019 television series of the same name.

6 Days is based on the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London. The cast combines international names (Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell, Australian Abbie Cornish) and Kiwis (Jared Turner, Xavier Horan). The Free Man — for whom Metcalfe was one of the credited writers  — looks at what motivates adrenaline junkies, through encounters between Kiwi skier Jossi Wells and extreme sports group The Flying Frenchies.  

Metcalfe also produced romantic comedy Love Birds, starring Rhys Darby and Brit Sally Hawkins, and 3D feature Beyond the Edge, which recreates Sir Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Everest. Metcalfe worked with the film's director Leanne Pooley (Untouchable Girls) once again on her animated feature 25 April, which tells the story of the 1915 Gallipoli landing. Like Beyond the Edge, it was invited to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. 25 April was nominated for both Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2017 Moa Film Awards. The pair's next project is a documentary about artificial intelligence.

Working alongside Fraser Brown, Metcalfe has also produced a trio of documentary projects involving legendary motor racers: Roger Donaldson's McLaren, about Kiwi Formula One legend Bruce McLaren, Born Racer - The Scott Dixon Story, and Wayne, which profiles Australian motorcycling champ Wayne Gardner. 

In 2019 Metcalfe was announced as a producer on Dawn Raid, a documentary about the iconic South Auckland hip hop record label of the same name.

Since Nemesis Game in 2003, Metcalfe has worked on further co-productions, including Emilie Richards, a series of German-NZ telemovies. He was a producer on French/Kiwi co-production Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Oscar Kightley's feature documentary on Auckland record label Dawn Raid, and the 2022 biopic of 'Mother of the Nation' Whina Cooper.

Metcalfe served for three years on the NZ Film Commission's Screen Production Incentive Fund, and in 2012 was a member of the steering committee for the government's Screen Sector Review.

In 2009 Metcalfe took time out from producing to complete an Advanced Diploma in History from Oxford University.

Profile updated on 11 February 2022

Sources include
Matthew Metcalfe
GFC Films website. Accessed 23 April 2021 
Robyn Gallagher, ‘Che Fu “Fade Away”’ 5000 ways to love you website. Loaded 9 April 2013. Accessed 23 May 2019
Bonnie Summer, 'master weaver’ (Interview) - The Sunday Star-Times (Sunday pullout) 11 June 2006, page 20
‘Nemesis Game to be released in Australia’ - NZ Film 70, March 2003, page 8
Andrew L Urban, ‘Dean Spanley - Our Talks With Sam Neill & Matthew Metcalfe’ (Interview). Urban Cinefile website. Loaded 5 March 2009. Accessed 23 May 2019
Deborah Young, ''The Dead Lands': Toronto Review' - The Hollywood Reporter, 9 May 2014
'Matthew Metcalfe Producer' (broken link) Love Birds website. Accessed 27 June 2013