Documentary New Zealand Trust

In 2003, as filmmakers, Dan Shanan and Alex Lee felt that New Zealand documentary filmmaking needed to nurtured and promoted. They felt that documentary filmmakers needed to have an advocate and the wider community would benefit from having a documentary film festival. New Zealand was lagging behind many global cities with successful documentary film festivals and New Zealand documentary filmmakers needed greater access to upskill themselves as well as resources and funding like their overseas counterparts.

Recognizing the explosion in audience numbers for documentary films and the world wide rise of documentary filmmaking, it became important to create a documentary film festival for the wider community to obtain greater access to the wide variety of documentaries genres. It was timely and appropriate for New Zealand to have its own documentary film festival which will also help to provide a home for New Zealand filmmakers to screen their films. Set up in 2004, DOCNZ is a non-profit organisation promoting documentary film-making and advocating opportunities for New Zealand documentary filmmakers. Its signature events are the DOCNZ International Documentary Film Festival and Summit. DOCNZ is a competitive international documentary film festival. It is a documentary advocacy body that seeks to establish local and overseas opportunities for local documentary filmmakers as well as to broaden up viewing opportunities for the local audiences. DOCNZ brings new business and filmic opportunities and great exposure to New Zealand and is committed to making DOCNZ festival and Summit the biggest such event in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2004, the inaugural DOCNZ Festival was held.

The Board expanded with Annie Goldson and Ewa Bigio joining bringing with them a wide range of skills and experiences in film-making, distribution and sales, festivals and business acumen. In 2007, Annie Goldson became the President of the Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand and with her new film productions and academic teaching work loads, became an Advisor instead of a Trustee.