Open The Door For Our Future Storytellers

Day One Hāpai te Haeata | Film

Aotearoa New Zealand

$20,110.00 of $20,000 Raised

101%

227 Generous Donors

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Overview

"Filmmaking has shaped who I am and I wouldn't be where I am without it. Day One opened up a space for me to feel encouraged to submit my work, and now I am a confident filmmaker."

— Kelsey Chapman, Day One alumni

Day One is the soil Aotearoa’s screen storytellers grow from.

We give emerging filmmakers the tools, guidance, and platform to share their stories.

We're the barefoot, backyard BBQ of the screen industry. A safe place to start, with an open door, particularly for those who've faced barriers to creative expression. Films about identity, belonging, language, the futures our rangatahi want to see.

The All Blacks didn't start training at 25. They started at five.

If we want Aotearoa's emerging filmmakers to shape our screen culture, we have to give them somewhere to begin. That's the gap Day One fills.

Day One is a registered charitable trust. Every programme is free to participants, and as an organisation that runs on external funding, every dollar you contribute goes directly into real films, real skills, and real careers.

19 years in, our impact has never been stronger:

Day One Shorts funds and mentors eight short films a year, launching real careers
Day One Challenge is our nationwide film competition open to anyone aged 5 to 29, with prizes, screenings, and mentorship throughout the year
Day One How To is our educational arm, workshops, e-learning, and video resources from idea to screen
Day One New Filmmaker Festival launching November 2026, with screenings, awards, and kōrero celebrating the next generation of Aotearoa storytellers

The funding environment for arts organisations like ours is the hardest it's been in years. A number of the trusts and foundations that have long supported the arts sector are pulling back, overwhelmed by applications from too many great organisations in need. We've made the cuts we can. Now we're asking our community to help us bridge the gap before we have to reduce our programmes.

Supporting this campaign funds more filmmakers, grows our reach across the motu, and gets the Day One New Filmmaker Festival off the ground.

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Donors

Murray Smallfield
Tyler Redmond

Great organisation wish I had more to give was an amazing opportunity to have our doco funded last year
Anonymous
Anonymous

Go go go!!! Nearly there!!! 💕
Libby Witheford-Smith

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Project Updates

4 Days Ago

Sooooooo close!!!!

Kia ora e te whānau.

It's been so incredible for us to see the support for Day One Hāpai te Haeata over the past few weeks and especially over the past week. Donation upon donation. People donating multiple times. People digging really deep. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

We are so close now - with just five hours to go there is still a way to go yet. Please help us to get those donations in. Share, nudge, phone, offer massages and lawn mowing to get people to donate!

Day One is a very, very special initiative with so much integrity and heart. So many of the people donating know this because they've been involved in some way and it's incredibly heartening to see those people give back years later. We've seen donations from people who entered our film competition fifteen years ago. Some of them have gone on to film careers, some have gone on to other things entirely. But we all have something in common - we love a good screen story that matters and that never changes no matter how many years pass.

Pass the link on and get them to donate!

Mauri ora,

Chris and Anna

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