Where We Come From: The Writers’ Journey - Auckland
Join NZWG in Upcoming Event in Tāmaki Makaurau!
Where We Come From: The Writers’ Journey - Auckland
When: Saturday 22 August 2026, 2pm - 4pm
Where: Kōmanawa Theatre, Te Puna Creative Hub, 8/14 Henderson Valley Road, Henderson, Auckland
This live panel asks what it means to tell the stories of Aotearoa from its biggest, most diverse, city, a place remaking itself faster than almost anywhere else in the country, and increasingly the engine room of the screen industry that speaks for the nation. And as the city changes, does what reaches the screen keep pace?
This conversation brings together writers and critics to talk honestly about the history, the legacy, and the ongoing fight of being a screenwriter here, not just the stories we've told, but who has been in the room to tell them.
- Who gets to tell the stories of Aotearoa, and from where?
- The awkward truth of reviewing local work when the industry's small enough that everyone knows everyone!
- How have funding, gatekeeping, and industrial frameworks shaped whose stories reach production?
- What does it mean to carry the responsibility of national storytelling from a city of a million-plus?
- And who is still missing?
This is not a nostalgia panel. It is a stocktake. A reckoning. And a forward look.
Join us live in Auckland as we trace the writer's journey through change, contest, and reinvention, in the city where so much of Aotearoa's screen story is made.
Panellists
Diana Wichtel - Journalist and critic who was the New Zealand Listener's television critic and feature writer for 36 years, and author of the award-winning memoirs Driving to Treblinka and Unreel: A Life in Review.
Dominic Corry - Auckland-based film and television critic, entertainment journalist and broadcaster; Letterboxd Editor-at-Large, with bylines across the NZ Herald, Flicks and Entertainment Weekly, and a regular reviewer on RNZ.
Rachel Lang MNZM - Award-winning screenwriter, showrunner and executive producer who co-created Outrageous Fortune, Go Girls, The Almighty Johnsons, and Nothing Trivial, and began her career as Shortland Street's first New Zealand story editor.
Victor Rodger ONZM -Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and producer of Sāmoan and Scottish descent whose work, from the stage plays Sons and Black Faggot to Shortland Street and Teine Sā: The Ancient Ones - interrogates race, identity, and belonging.
Scotty Cotter -(Tainui, Fijian, Scottish) Award-winning actor turned writer-director whose credits include the series Dead Ahead and Rule of Mum and the stage work Neke, with storytelling that reshapes conventions around Indigenous narrative.
Moderated by:
Alice Shearman, Executive Director, NZWG
Part of the NZWG 50th Anniversary programme, a year-long celebration of the writers behind Aotearoa’s screen stories.
Because no screen story begins without a writer. And no industry survives without understanding where it has come from. Join us!
Get Your Tickets HERE
