Robert Sarkies

Robert Sarkies (born 1967) is a New Zealand film director and scriptwriter.

Sarkies grew up in the South Island city of Dunedin. He attended Kaikorai Valley College. His three feature films to date have been set in Dunedin, or in the lower South Island. After his debut feature Scarfies, Sarkies followed it in 2006 with Out of the Blue, based on the 1990 Aramoana Massacre, then black comedy Two Little Boys, starring Bret McKenzie and Australia's Hamish Blake.

Sarkies began making short films as a teenager with fellow filmmaker Simon Perkins. After winning an international award for his short Dream-makers, Sarkies began work on his most ambitious short to date: adventure comedy Signing Off (1996), which won four international awards and helped attract funding for Scarfies (1999), his feature debut.

Sarkies co-wrote the Scarfies script with his younger brother, playwright and performer Duncan Sarkies. Winner of seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the NZ Film Awards, and a local hit, the film is part comedy, part thriller, and partly a celebration of being a university student in Dunedin. Scarfies was later released on video in the United States under the title Crime 101.

Sarkies' second feature was drama Out of the Blue based on the 1990 Aramoana Massacre, in which a gunman killed thirteen people in a seaside town close to Dunedin. The film emphasizes realism over melodrama, partly through handheld camerawork and a naturalistic acting style. Some of those living in Aramoana expressed opposition to the film being made; others who lost people in the tragedy agreed to do interviews with scriptwriters Sarkies and Graeme Tetley.

In New Zealand, Out of the Blue became the tenth most successful local film yet released theatrically (not accounting for inflation). It also won six Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2008, including "Best Picture - budget over $1 million". As of October 2008, Out of the Blue's rating on critics' website Rotten Tomatoes was 91 per cent.

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