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Pietra Brettkelly
Joined on
July 2024
Location
Auckland
Ethnicity
New Zealander, Irish
Iwi
Languages
English, conversational te reo Māori
Years of Experience
About me
Pietra Brettkelly is a Sundance award-winning and three times Oscar® selected producer and director. She is the inaugural New Zealand Arts Laureate in Documentary and is a member of AMPAS. Her films have premiered In Competition at Toronto, Berlin, Venice, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals and have screened at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence and at MOMA, New York and been acquired by premier documentary strande BBC Storyville.
Pietra follows a life of curiosity and risk-taking. To paraphrase one of her favourite artists Basquiat “I never went to film school. I just looked”. Pietra is a three times Sundance Institute alum having been selected for the invitation only Documentary Edit and Story Lab, and the Documentary Producers Lab and Fellowship. Pietra was also selected for the two year-long Binger Film Lab, Amsterdam.
Proficiencies & skills
Qualifications
Featured work
CROCODILE Producer/Director/Writer
They live in a town called Kaduna, CROCODILE in English. Nine kids rising out of the struggles of 21st century Nigeria, rewriting their future... and setting it in 2089 scifi world. CROCODILE is a coming-of-age feature documentary film charting tragedies and triumphs as they fight crocodiles emerging from a world they thought would save them. To be internationally released in 2025.
YELLOW IS FORBIDDEN Producer/Director/Writer
World Premier In Competition, Tribeca Film Festival
Selected New Zealand entrant for Best International Film, Oscars
Qualified Best Feature Documentary, Oscars
Haute couture from China is surely just a fantasy for the historically drably-dressed masses. But a brave, daring and diminutive artist has entered the world stage chasing the dream every designer has - to become part of the exclusive yet savage world of Haute Couture.
And Guo Pei’s Cinderella story doesn’t end at the ball.
A FLICKERING TRUTH Producer/Director
World Premier In Competition Venice and Toronto Film Festivals
Selected New Zealand entrant for Best International Film, Oscars
As Afghanistan teeters on an unpredictable future, A FLICKERING TRUTH unwraps the world of three dreamers, the dust of 100 years of war and the restoration of 8000 hours of film archive. What surprises will emerge from the cloak of time in this feature documentary film?
THE ART STAR AND THE SUDANESE TWINS Producer/Director
Sundance award-winning documentary feature film.
Vanessa Beecroft is obsessively determined to adopt Sudanese twin orphans. Her consuming passion drives her marriage to a breaking point and fuels her controversial art, raising troubling questions about exploitation, culture clash, and the imposition of the West on Africa.