Karen Louise Sidney

Karen Sidney was born in Christchurch and was educated at Campbells Bay Primary School and Rangitoto College. She has graduated with a B.A. in Māori and Anthropology from Auckland University in 1984. Also in 1984, she attended a course called "Introduction to Media for Māori Women" through W.E.A. (Workers Educational Association). She then went into freelance film work. She did a short film-making course called "Film Wananga" for young Māori; this course was run by Barry Barclay, Cherie O’Shea and Pacific Films at the Taradale Community College, Hawkes Bay in 1985. She was awarded a creative film and video grant from the QEII Arts Council. She moved to Wellington in 1986 and did some tukutuku weaving at Nga Herenga Waka Marae at Victoria. She then did freelance film and video work and worked as a co-ordinator for a Māori Communicators Association called Te Manu Aute. In 1987 she went overseas for a couple of years and attended the first world Indigenous Film Festival at Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canada. On her return to Auckland in 1989, she set up a business partnership called Kauru Productions with Chris McBride. Her role in the business involved design and print production, video/film development and production, publicity, research, video/film distribution and internet web site design. In 1992 she went to the Mondial Festival in Brussels, Belgium where she co-ordinated He Taonga I Tawhiti school productions and other Māori videos. She also attended the Dreamspeakers’ Festival in Edmonton, Canada in 1992 and 1994, and the Festival of South Pacific Arts, in Rarotonga in 1992 and Samoa in 1996. She continued with film work in 1992 and attended the Te Reo Māori Summer School at Carrington Polytechnic. This course covered functional language, extension of karakia, whaikorereo, waiata, marae complex, Māori values and contemporary Māori issues. In 1993 she attended a production management course, Te Ara Whakaata, which gave her full grounding in production management for drama and documentary. In 1993, she set up a business partnership initially with Gabrielle Huria, and now with Chris McBride; the business is called Potiki Films Ltd. Her role in this partnership is video/film/television project development and production, research, video/film distribution. She has been a representative on various committees, Te Manu Aute, the Wellington branch and National Association of Māori Communicators from 1986-87, Te Manu Aute/Te AraWhakaata, the Association of Māori Communicators, Auckland branch from 1990-94, Te AraWhakaata, Te Waka Toi (Māori Arts Council) film and video subcommittee from 1990-94, and Nga Aho Whakaari the Association of Māori film/video/tv workers from She began writing stories, poetry and plays as a child. In the early 1990s she began writing for Ears and wrote stories for children. Her children’s stories won a Te Atairangikaahu writers’ award in 1993. In 1994 she attended a Writing in Pictures, N.Z. Writers’ Guild course and in the same year won the Alanis Ombomsawin award in Canada for Kahu and Maia. This award was sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada for outstanding contribution to the advancement of Aboriginal Filmmaking. She wrote and directed the preschool children’s television programme You and Me. Her film credits include work on The Silent One, Ngāti, Mauri, Inaka, Kimi and the Watermelon and Kahu and Maia.

Biographical sources

• Correspondence from Karen Sidney, 14 Aug. and 14 Sept. 1998.
• Te Ao Mārama: Contemporary Māori Writing for Children. Comp. and ed. Witi Ihimaera. Contributing ed. Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D. S. Long. Vol. 4: Te Ara o Te Hau: The Path of the Wind. Auckland, N.Z.: Reed, 1994. 342.