The New Zealand Film Commission is pleased to announce and congratulate the twelve film maker teams selected to attend the 2011 Escalator Low Budget Feature Film boot camp in May:

• Glen Real, Wayne Ching, Alan Dickson
  (Shirley and the Hungary Bear, Peter Potts and the Pear Tree, The Zookeeper’s Son)
• Jeff Simmonds, Hayden Campbell
  (One Hundred Million Dollars, Bad Lama, The Eco-Terrorist)
• Maxine Fleming, Murray Keane, Carmen Leonard
  (The Thing About My Brother, New Velvet High, Seven Wonders)
• Corie Geerders, Brad Lincoln, Reagan Morris
  (CrawlSpace, Echo, Truck and Digger)
• James McKnight, Henley McKegg
  (The Elect, The Bowen Affair, Pink Moon)
• Catherine Bisley, Dallas O’Neil
  (There Must Be More To Love, Mountain’s Shadow, Scenic Reserve)
• Tom Hern, Max Currie, Luke Robinson
  (Hunt. Kill. Make Love to Woman, Stealing Tommy, Sexual Transmission)
• James Solomon, Guy Capper
  (Llama Dreams, Corona, Scouts)
• Sophie Henderson, Curtis Vowell, Sarah Cook
  (Manhunt, Faintail, I ?Camping)
• Richard Green, Johnny Givens, Brad Haami
  (Te Taipo, Te Utu o te Wairua, Strip)
• Joe Lonie, Anna Geddes, Duncan Cole
  (The Groupie, Meanage, The T-Bone Taxi Tapes)
• Arthur Meek, Matthew Saville
  (One in Eight, The Colour, Firehands)

Following on from boot camp, in August four of these teams will be offered production finance of up to NZ$250,000 for one of their ideas.

The 12 teams were selected from 133 applications. Announcing the selection, NZ Film Commission CEO Graeme Mason said “Escalator is a competitive process and the calibre of the projects received this year made it a tough selection.

The selected projects include animation, drama, horror, claymation and comedy; and the applications received from the 12 successful teams all demonstrated a passion and clear vision for the stories they want to tell. We are excited to be working with them.”

Escalator was launched in February last year. Two of the four films selected from last year’s Escalator scheme have begun production. Applications for 2012 Escalator will next be sought in March 2012.