Briar March
Briar March is a filmmaker and Fulbright scholar. Her films have been broadcast on major television networks around the world, including PBS, Arte, and ABC Asia Pacific, have been released in commercial cinemas, and are regularly exhibited in film festivals. She has received over 20 international awards for her filmmaking, including the prestigious SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year Award, and a Qantas Film and Television Award for “Best Editing” in 2010. Her extensive filmography comprises two feature length documentaries, There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho (2010), and Allie Eagle and Me (2004), as well as four documentary shorts: Smoke Songs (2012), Michael & His Dragon (2010), Sick Wid It (2010), and Promenade (2011). In addition to these, Briar directs music videos, magazine shows, and is a practicing artist in the medium of video and photography. Her wide interest in multi-media has lead her to work as a television editor, production manager, and cinematographer on both fiction and documentary projects, and she is highly involved in the New Zealand Film and Television community. Briar shares the production company On the Level Productions, with Lyn Collie, with offices in the United States and New Zealand, and is currently a fulltime Instructor in Documentary Film Production at Florida Atlantic University. She received an M.F.A in Documentary Film and Video Production at Stanford University, and a B.F.A at Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts. In all of her work Briar hopes to challenge and inspire audiences, with a view that cinema is both a tool for social change and an important form of art-making.