About JJ

I’m a film-maker with a background in advertising, graphic design and photography. Originally from New Zealand, I'm now based in Sydney, Australia. My first feature film, JUNE AGAIN, was released in May 2021.

Making a feature has always been a dream and it took a long time getting there. If you’re interested in how that came about, there’s a blow-by-blow account of it here.

I first started making short films in 2007. My first was made for a competition that was part of the Sydney Film Festival. I made a film about a talking leaf. And it won!

I followed that up with an animation. It took me two years to complete, even though the whole thing was set on a bar of soap. It’s called COMING CLEAN.

My first live action short film was THE MIND JOB. This was an epic undertaking and was a film school in itself. This is the film that really got me up and running.

After making THE MIND JOB, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I wasn’t ready to try making a full-length feature film, but I didn’t want to spend another two years making another short film. So, instead, I decided I would make twelve films in twelve months. Of course.

It was the craziest year of my life, and it nearly defeated me. But I made it. And walked away with twelve shiny new short films.

With the confidence I gained from making the twelve shorts, I finally felt ready to take on a feature film. It’s a long story, but after writing a script in 2017 and shooting it in 2019, we were able to get it out into the world in 2021. It’s called JUNE AGAIN and you can watch the trailer below.

JUNE AGAIN has enjoyed much success and has been huge for my career. It was released on over 300 screens across Australia and New Zealand, then went on to play around the world. It currently enjoys a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. To this day I still get random messages from people thanking me for the film.

While I was in the process of making JUNE AGAIN, I came up with an idea for a new type of interactive film. It was one of this niggling ideas that just wouldn’t go away. Would it work? Would people respond to it?There was only one way to find out. The result was CROSSING PATHS, an interactive digital comedy that follows 12 characters over the course of a day as their lives all interconnect. You can play it here, at crossingpaths.tv or watch the trailer.

It was a huge undertaking and its creation involved a group of very wonderful, talented people and about four years of tinkering and chipping away. Eventually it played at Sydney Film Festival and received funding from Screen Australia to create a web version – which means it’s now free for everyone to watch. Go check it out, it’s pretty cool.

What’s next? Well, that’s a very good question...