Robert Sarkies

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Robert Sarkies  born 1969 is a New Zealand film director and scriptwriter Sarkies grew up in the South Island city of Dunedin and his two feature films released to date have been set in Dunedin or close by He began making short films as a teenager with fellow filmmaker Simon Perkins After winning an international award for his short Dreammakers Sarkies began work on his most ambitious short to date the adventure comedy Signing Off 1996 which won four international awards and helped attract funding for Scarfies1999 Sarkies feature film debut Sarkies cowrote the Scarfies script with his younger brother playwright and performer Duncan Sarkies Winner of seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the NZ Film Awards the film is part comedy part thriller and partly a celebration of being a university student in Dunedin Scarfies was later released on video in the United States under the title Crime 101 Sarkies second feature is the truelife thriller Out of the Blue based on the 1990 Aramoana Massacre in which a gunman killed thirteen people in a seaside town not far from Dunedin The film emphasizes realism over melodrama partly through handheld camerawork and a naturalistic acting style Some of those living in Aromoana expressed opposition to the film being made others who lost people in the tragedy agreed to do interviews with scriptwriters Sarkies and Graeme Tetley In New Zealand Out of the Blue went on to become the tenth most successful local film yet released theatrically not accounting for inflation and win six Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2008 including Best Picture budget over 1 million As of October 2008 Out of the Blues rating on critics website Rotten Tomatoes was 91 per cent Before the making of Out of the Blue the Sarkies brothers worked together on the script for a fantasy film called The Magnificent Magic Fingers The budget for Magic Fingers was estimated to be at least NZ20 million It is not yet clear whether Magic Fingers will join Peter Jacksons unmade Blubberhead as one of the great fantasy films that never quite emerged from down under In 2010 the TV series This Is Not My Life directed by Sarkies debuted on New Zealand Television Hopefully Robert will be considering a major role for Andy Faulkner who he directed to great comedic effect in a 2006 TVC for Ford Fairmont Ghia Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Sarkies licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia