Pietra Brettkelly

Pietra Brettkelly is a New Zealand documentary director and producer, whose work has featured in four of the five top international film festivals - Sundance, Berlin, Venice and Toronto. Best known for the films A Flickering Truth and The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, Brettkelly was a journalist before becoming a filmmaker and her work has taken her to nearly 100 countries.

Brettkelly's most recent film, A Flickering Truth, which documents the unearthing of the Afghan Film Archive in Kabul, Afghanistan, premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim. The Hollywood Reporter's Deborah Young praised the film, describing it as "a documentary not just for archivists but for those who see film as a vital part of local culture,"while Indiewire’s Eric Kohn called the movie an "eye-opening documentary ... a moving navigation of Afghanistan’s past and present."

When filming in southern Sudan in 2006 for the television documentary series Ends of the Earth for Television New Zealand, Brettkelly met Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft. Beecroft is famous for her provocative performance art, and while in Sudan for a project had decided to try and adopt motherless twins. Brettkelly had previously produced a documentary on international adoption, The Rescue of Iani and, along with cameraman Jacob Bryant, eventually followed Beecroft's adoption efforts over 16 months, which formed the basis for The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins.

Wrote Variety’s Peter Debruge: “Pietra Brettkelly’s enigmatic rendering…is not a straightforward artist’s profile, political commentary or domestic drama, but a poetic fusion of the three.”

Music for many of Brettkelly's documentaries has been composed by musician and singer Anika Moa, with Benjamin Wallfisch composing for her latest A Flickering Truth.

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