Paul Janman
Director
With 2012 film Tongan Ark, Paul Janman celebrated bilcultural philosopher Futa Helu and the independent university he founded in Nuku'alofa. A sellout at the NZ Film Festival, the documentary's global screenings included travels around the Pacific, often accompanied by live performances. Janman himself is Welsh/English, but raised in Aotearoa. While occupied by various art projects, he also teaches screen production at Auckland University of Technology. Featuring historians, tohunga, actors and gamers, his next documentary is a journey through myth and reality on Auckland's Great South Road.
Philosophy and filmmaking have caused me to sit with visionaries on pavements and in schools and temples in neglected corners of the earth. Otherwise, I'm interested in what the average person does to stay sane in the Auckland suburbs. Paul Janman