Festival 2007
Program
Opening Ceremony
Will be held in the evening on Friday April 20th 2007 in the theatre at the Lake Wanaka Centre. It begins at 7pm. Special guest speaker is Ruud Kleinpaste. A selection of Wild South wines will also be available.
Speakers
Ruud Kleinpaste
Broadcaster/Presenter
Dutch/Indonesian-born Ruud Kleinpaste has worked in television for 14 years as presenter, scriptwriter and director on numerous shows, ranging from children's television to serious (and heavy-digging) gardening programs.
Ruud gained an MSc (Hons) in Silviculture and Animal Ecology at the Wageningen University in the Netherlands, but Ornithology and Entomology have always been far more important hobbies to him: he studied kiwis in New Zealand and single-handedly raised the profile of all those small, invertebrate creatures that really rule this world through recycling, composting, pollination and bio-control.
Whether it's writing articles or presenting television shows, running a talk radio program or consulting industry, leading eco-tours or lecturing at the Technical University, the ecology and conservation of our planet and the role of insects are common threads in most of his activities. Yes, Ruud is mad about mighty midges and tiny tyrants!
Lou Sanson
Lou Sanson is the Chief Executive of Antarctica New Zealand, responsible for developing, managing, and executing New Zealand's activities in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
Prior to joining Antarctica New Zealand, Lou was employed as Operations Manager and for six years as the Conservator for the Department of Conservation's Southland Conservancy (Fiordland, Stewart Island and New Zealand's Sub-Antarctic Islands). He led the establishment of New Zealand's most recent National Park 'Rakiura National Park', the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Island World Heritage Area, the establishment of Auckland Island and Patterson's Inlet Marine Reserves, the world's largest rat eradication project in Campbell Island Nature Reserve, and the successful shift of the world's most endangered parrot, the Kakapo, back to Fiordland National Park.
Lou specialised in mountain-land environmental management (plant ecology, animal biology, geohydrology) at New Zealand's Forest Research Institute following the completion of an Honours Degree in Forestry Sciences at the University of Canterbury. He worked as an Environmental Forester for the New Zealand Forest Service in Invercargill.
He first worked in the Antarctic on glacial drilling and geohydrology projects for the New Zealand and United States Antarctic research programmes in the Dry Valleys in 1982/1983. He has also worked as a New Zealand Government representative and as guest lecturer on Antarctic cruise ships, both in the Ross Sea and Antarctic Peninsula.
A keen outdoor person, Lou enjoys natural history, hiking, ski-touring, diving and photography.
Masaru Ikeo
Executive Producer
Media International Corporation
Masaru Ikeo is Executive Producer, Co-production & Business Development for Media International Corporation (MICO) which is an affiliate company of NHK in charge of distribution, acquisition and development for the visual content.
Masaru worked for NHK as a producer and an executive producer for natural history and science programs before joining MICO in 2006. Since joining NHK in 1973, Masaru has been involved in the production of NHK Special series including The Miracle Planet (12 x 60', 1987) and The Arctic (12 x 60', 1988-9). He also worked as Executive Producer for The Global Family (1990-1996), a popular weekly natural history program which has been on the air since 1990, Production Controller in Sapporo Regional Headquarters (1996-1998) and Executive Producer of Programming for the HD Channel (1999-2001).
In 2003, he led The Antarctica Project which included a series of science documentaries and live HD transmissions from Antarctica! At the same time, he has been involved in lots of co-production projects, such as The Equator (6 x 60',2005-2006) with Natural History New Zealand, The Queen of Trees (1 x 60’,2006) with Mark Deeble & Victoria Stone, Odzala (1 x 60’,2006) with Bruce Davidson and Planet Earth (11 x 60',2006) with BBC Natural History Unit. Currently, Masaru is actively involved in development for the nature feature film in 2D and 3D.
Other speakers TBC
Public Screenings
Will be held every day from April 21st to 25th at Cinema Paradiso. Please see Screening Schedule for more details.
All individual films are open to the public at $5 (NZ) per session or $10 for a double screening
A special loyalty card can be purchased for $25. This allows the holder to see six films for the price of five.
Individual tickets can be purchased from Cinema Paradiso during the festival. The loyalty card will be available the week before, as well as during the festival.
Due to the limited seating it is advised that people book a seat prior to the screening.