2021 Arts Foundation Laureate receiving Dame Gaylene Preston Documentary Filmmaker Award

"Whether his subjects are intimate and local or celebrated and international, he approaches them with unflagging enthusiasm, curiosity, and empathy. He is an inventor of genre." - 2021 Selection Panel

Berlin born, Florian Habicht is one of New Zealand’s most productive and distinctive filmmakers. Films include Woodenhead, Kaikohe Demolition, Rubbings from a Live Man, Land of the Long White Cloud, Love Story, Pulp: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets and Spookers. His most recent offering James & Isey has become one of the top grossing NZ documentaries of all time.

In 2010, Florian was the first recipient of the Harriet Friedlander NYC Residency, where he made Love Story. The entire narrative was sourced (on camera) from real New Yorkers on the streets of the Big Apple. Love Story opened the New Zealand Film Festival in 2011. When it screened at the London Film Festival in 2012, Jarvis Cocker of British group Pulp invited Florian to make a film about Pulp and their hometown Sheffield. Pulp: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets premiered at SXSW, opened Sheffield Doc Fest 2014 and won Best Music Film at the NME Awards.

Florian has three feature scripts in development, and a Creative New Zealand funded video installation. Other career highlights include winning the Best Decorated Bicycle Award at Paihia Primary School in 1982.