Briar Grace-Smith

Briar descends from Ngāti Hau and Ngāpuhi iwi. She is a filmmaker and writer of award-winning plays, screenplays, short fiction and television scripts. She works as a mentor to screenwriters in New Zealand and overseas. Her plays include Ngā Pou Wāhine, Purapurawhetū and When Sun and Moon Collide. Her first feature film The Strength of Water premiered at Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festivals, winning her a NZ Swanz award for best feature film script, 2010.  She was one of nine Māori women filmmakers who created the acclaimed feature film omnibus Waru.  She was the director of Krystal which as selected as one of the six best NZ shorts at the NZIFF, 2019.  Her television credits include Fishskin Suit, Kaitangata Twitch, Being Eve, This is Piki, and the Australian childrens’ series Grace Beside Me. Briar’s the screen writer, Co Director and one of the lead actors in the feature film Cousins, 2021 – an adaptation of the novel by Patricia Grace. She is an inaugural recipient of the Arts Foundation Laureate Award. In  2019 she received the Sundance Merata Mita Fellowship, and in 2021, the WIFT Mana Wāhine Award. Briar was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 for her contribution to theatre, television and screen.