Welby Ings

Welby Ings is an academic, teacher and filmmaker who has made a distinctive mark in each discipline. As a director, writer and designer, his short films Boy (2006), Munted (2011) and Sparrow (2016) enjoyed great success on the international festival circuit. His first feature Punch debuted at the 2022 New Zealand International Film Festival. Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Selma) stars as a small-town Kiwi father and boxing coach, struggling with the sexuality of his son (Jordan Oosterhof). Ings teaches Design at Auckland University of Technology, and is the author of Disobedient Thinker, a bestselling book on his teaching philosophy.

Punch took 14 years to develop. In 1997 my partner, who came from a well-known boxing family, died in a hospice and because of a difficult relationship with his father, he wouldn’t let him come to say goodbye. I began asking what might a love story between a father and his son look like if his son was gay, a brilliant boxer — but walked away from his father’s devotion to the dream of his success? I wanted to make a film about repairing love. Welby Ings on the inspiration behind his first feature Punch, AUT website, June 2020