Death of NZFC’s third chief executive

October 6, 2022

Wellington.Scoop
Judith McCann, a former chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission and Film New Zealand, has died suddenly in Ottawa. Her five years leading the Film Commission resulted in two of the country’s most successful films.

Judith McCann became the NZFC’s third executive director in January 1989, succeeding Jim Booth who had moved out to produce films with Peter Jackson.

She faced a production slump, because the Film Commission was insisting that every local feature film should have partial investment from private sources. But the private sources had dried up, and the consequent drop in production had created a crisis of confidence in the new film industry.

Judith McCann persuaded the Commission to change its policies. Instead of holding out for private investment, it agreed to invest 100 per cent of the cost of five new feature films.

One of the five new films was Jane Campion’s An Angel At My Table, produced by Bridget Ikin and based on the acclaimed autobiographical novels by Janet Frame. The film became a major international success. It won the special jury prize and seven other awards at the 1990 Venice Film Festival. It won the critics’ award at the Toronto Film Festival and became ‘best foreign film of the year’ in the United States and Australia. It was the first New Zealand film selected for the New York Film Festival.

Other directors whose emerging careers were supported by Judith McCann during her tenure at the NZFC included Gaylene Preston, Peter Jackson, Alison Maclean, Garth Maxwell and David Blyth.

In 1991, producer Robin Scholes and director Lee Tamahori were developing Once Were Warriors, with a script by Alan Duff based on his best-selling book. But the Commission did not like his first draft and Judith McCann, with head of development Ruth Jeffery, encouraged the filmmakers to choose another writer. This was Riwia Brown, who restructured the script and strengthened the role of the wife, who was to be played by Rena Owen. The film became a top seller in the market at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, and was the top-grossing film in its New Zealand release, with an audience of more than a million people, outgrossing Jurassic Park and The Lion King.

At the Montreal Film Festival, the feature won best film, and best actress for Rena Owen. At the Venice Film Festival, it won the best first feature award. It was released in more than 60 countries – the biggest ever exposure for a New Zealand at that time.

Judith McCann left the NZFC after five years, a period when she had successfully revived the struggling local production industry and had overseen investment in more than thirty local features including two of New Zealand’s most successful films – three, if you include Heavenly Creatures which also received Film Commission support during her term.

She then became chief executive officer of the South Australian Film Corporation, where she came to be admired for rejuvenating the state’s film industry.

After a period running a film consultancy in Canada, she returned to Wellington in 2005 to head the newly formed Film New Zealand, an industry-led organisation which aimed to encourage offshore productions. She held this position till 2009, when she moved back to Canada to be closer to her family. She lived in Ottawa and ran a film consultancy business.

Judith McCann was born in Christchurch, and lived with her family in Ngaruawahia and Tauranga until her parents moved to Canada, where she graduated in history from the University of Saskatchewan. She became the Canadian government’s chief of film policy and certification before joining the Canadian Film Development Corporation (later renamed Telefilm Canada) and becoming its deputy director. She came to New Zealand in 1987 to negotiate a government to government co-production agreement between Canada and New Zealand. It was the first time she had been back in New Zealand since she was a schoolgirl.

In Canada, she had learnt French as part of the government’s policy of bi-lingualism. Given this experience, she ensured that te reo Maori was one of the languages in the agreement. In her new role at the Film Commission, she began weekly lessons in te reo, and under her leadership the Commission appointed its first kaumatua and kuia to provide advice from a Maori perspective.