Gwen Isaac
Senior Lecturer, Bachelor of Screen Arts (Hons) Co-ordinator: Factual Major
Gwen leads the Bachelor of Screen Arts (Hons) factual major at Massey University’s College of Creative Arts, Toi Rauwhārangi. Gwen teaches film production, specialising in documentary and factual filmmaking, theory and practice. Her teaching practice fuses practical production skillsets and techniques with the theory and history of documentary filmmaking.
Gwen Isaac is a practising documentary and factual filmmaker. Her most recent feature film, Ms. Information, was selected for Whanau Marāma 2023 (NZ International Film Festival) and FIFO Tahiti 2024. She grew up in Kororāreka, Te Tai Tokerau. Gwen spent a decade creating television formats and directing factual and documentary series for broadcasters in the UK and USA.
Highlights include Summer at Yorkminster for BBC Scotland, Heroes Unmasked for NBC USA, The Real Washington for BBC World News and Old Dogs, New Tricks for ITV London as part of the prestigious Metroland series. Where There is Life (2017) her debut feature documentary was selected for the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival. It was described as “startling in its candour” and she was awarded Best First Time Director at the London Independent Film Awards. In 2021 Gwen released short documentaries Tokyo Woman (selected for four international festivals) and Siouxsie & the Virus which was awarded best film in the Long Story Shorts Competition.
Currently, Gwen is currently developing personal feature 'Mad Merry' as part of post graduate studies – and for film festival release. Gwen regularly lectures to tertiary institutions, community groups and organisations aligned to documentary production and feminist filmmaking. In particular longitudinal, observational, character-led films and maternal portraits are her specialist areas of investigation. In 2023 Gwen was invited to participate in the ‘Women in the Wild’ panel at Visible Evidence XXIX Visible Ecologies, the prestigious documentary studies conference. Gwen travelled with ‘Ms. Information’ for special Q &A sessions of the film, during 2023 – 2024 by invitation of the Royal Society (Te Aparāngi) and as part of Whanau Marāma NZ International Festival release.
In 2025 Gwen launched, with Massey students, a series of short documentaries, the ‘Artist Studio’ which reveals the unique artistic processes of emerging fine artists in Aotearoa.
Gwen Isaac -
Facebook - Instagram - @gwenlindseyisaac.bsky.social
Ms Information Movie
Facebook - Instagram
-
Expertise
Documentary production, documentary theory, feminist filmmaking
-
Recent research successes
Ms. Information (feature documentary, 2023)
Critically acclaimed feature documentary selected for Whānau Mārama: NZ International Film Festival and FIFO Tahiti. Finalist for the Dumbo Film Festival.
As the nation plunges into the pandemic, Gwen Isaac’s observational documentary delves into the trenches with Siouxsie Wiles, the fuchsia-haired microbiologist who emerged as a national hero and a satanic witch in the minds of a divided New Zealand.
Visible Evidence XXIX (2023)
Gwen presented Women in the Wild to international documentary filmmakers and academics at the Visible Evidence conference in Udine, Italy.
Siouxsie and the Virus (short documentary, 2020)
This short documentary for prestigious NZ documentary strand Loading Docs follows “science superhero with pink hair” Dr Siouxie Wiles as she advocates for the scientific logic behind Aotearoa’s COVID-19 lockdown with the nation’s media. It has clocked up half-a-million views and was awarded best film in the Long Story Shorts competition. This short will be followed up with Isaac’s second feature documentary Siouxsie with an X (forthcoming).
Tokyo Woman (short documentary, 2021)
Tokyo Woman is a triptych of intimate portrayals of Toyko-based women, exposing gender imbalances in contemporary Japan. It was selected for four international festivals, winning Best Sound and Music at the WILDSound Festival in Canada, and was also featured as part of the 2022 Sightlines ASPERA peer-reviewed online journal.
Where There is Life (feature documentary, 2017)
Isaac’s debut feature documentary Where There is Life follows the story of Margaret, a mother who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, her husband and full-time carer Stephen, and her ten-year-old daughter. Filmed over four years, Isaac’s documentary provides an intimate account of ‘till death us do part’. It premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2017, where the selection panel acclaimed the film “startling in its candour”. It was subsequently included in international film festivals including Doc Without Borders, The Wayward Festival, and the Blow-up International Art House Film Festival (USA). Gwen won Best First Time Film Director for her work on the film at the London Independent Film Awards.
-
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Communications (Auckland University of Technology)
- Certificate of Media Law for journalists and broadcasters (UK, Skillset)
-
Professional affiliations or service roles
Women in Film and Television NZ (member), Director and Editors Guild Aotearoa (member), Screen Production and Development Agency (SPADA) (member), Directors UK (member), AANZCA Australia and Aotearoa NZ Communication Association Executive Committee member
-
Orcid ID
