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Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
On thin ice: Science at the end of the world
A new documentary following climate scientists to Antarctica, explains the physics of our predicament, Tom McKinlay writes. It's cold in Middlemarch, Pat Langhorn reports when she picks up the phone. "There's still ice on the puddles." It's a commonplace enough observation from the Strath Taieri in winter, but the point the professor is making is that the ice has survived late into the day, despite all attentions from the season's admittedly weak sun. Too little energy in it, given the Earth's lean, for it to return the puddle water to liquid. Emeritus Prof Langhorn knows why. "We were walking today, as I said, and there was ice on the puddles, and people were poking it and saying, 'oh look, there's still ice'. And I said, 'well, you know, it takes an awful lot of energy to melt ice, and a lot of energy to freeze it as well'." Physics is the professor's area of expertise. Ice too. Melting a kilogram of ice takes as much energy as it would to raise that same volume of water to 80°C, she explains. A revealing little truth, neatly explaining Middlemarch's slippery winter reality. But in Prof Langhorn's world it also has other more existential implications. For decades now, Prof Langhorn has been studying sea ice. Initially her field work was in the Arctic but, by the second half of the the 1980s, the focus had switched to Antarctica - she's been based at the University of Otago since 1988. At both poles sea ice has been in decline, failing to form or melting more. That's a worry. Because the sun will continue to send its heat and light, that won't change. But if the sea ice isn't there to meet it, all that energy once consumed by the business of melting is going to do other work instead. "The thought that suddenly there isn't that ice there taking up all this energy and instead it goes into heating the ocean is a bit frightening, I think," Prof Langhorn says. The physics lesson about the kilogram of ice, delivered again by Prof Langhorn, appears in a new documentary, Mighty Indeed , which will screen at this year's Doc Edge documentary film festival. It follows a couple of scientists down to the Antarctic, oceanographer Dr Natalie Robinson and microbiology PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart, representatives of a new generation walking in Prof Langhorne's snowy footsteps. There's plenty of frightening in Mighty Indeed and frightened people - the scientists - but it also manages to celebrate both women in science and the extraordinary unimagined benefits of blue-skies research, the science for science's sake that ends up making an outsized contribution to the human project. Prof Langhorne has experienced the highs and lows of both the former and the latter at first hand. The Scotswoman trained in the UK - Aberdeen then Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute - and applied to join the British Antarctic Survey back in the '70s. She made it through the first round, but then the penny dropped that "Pat" was not "Patrick" and her application went no further. "I mean, things have changed quite dramatically in the area in which I've been involved, in which I've had my career, not just in terms of the science, and, of course, the sea ice has changed dramatically, and that's a very depressing story, but a more uplifting story is that it's now much easier for any gender to be involved in science. Gender is not the issue that it once was in that line of work," she says. "So now, you know, if you go to a sea ice conference, there will be at least as many women there as men, which is quite a change." Prof Langhorne is also an advocate for the latter - curiosity and blue-skies science. "Yes, definitely. And, I mean, again, from my own personal perspective, younger people, as I got towards the end of my career, thought that I had somehow magically seen there was going to be a problem and gone searching to understand this problem, which, of course, was not the truth at all. You know, I was interested in sea ice, and at the time that I started to look at sea ice, it was really considered very sort of flippant and why would you bother?" It's a demonstration, she says, of the importance of people deciding what they're interested in and doing their very best to follow that line of inquiry. However, it's no longer a very fashionable idea, she says with regret. That's an obstacle for her young colleagues. "Blue-skies research is really important, because often it's by exploring things that we don't know that we find out things that we didn't know we were going to find out. We didn't know we didn't know them." She has observed the building expectation that science should always be at the service of some calculable, bankable output - should be innovating towards a particular application. "That's just not going to get you the best science," she says. "You can't innovate by thinking, 'well, this morning I'm going to get up and be innovative'. It's not usually the way it goes. So, yeah, I think exploration is really important." Prof Langhorne can't remember the moment when her physicist's "flippant" interest in sea ice became climate science and vitally important to the future of civilisation as we know it. Indeed, back when she started, if anyone outside the academy was giving sea ice any thought at all, it was likely to be as an impediment to drilling for oil. Not that fossil fuel was ever part of her interest. And even Prof Langhorne's first trip to the southern continent had a focus on relatively quotidian matters - on ice as a platform for vehicles and for aircraft to land on. "So there was a fairly gradual transition, I would say, from thinking about it in terms of 'here is something that's an impediment that we need to move in order to get at the oil that's inconveniently underneath the sea ice', to, goodness me, 'this sea ice is really, really important to climate, and we need to understand why it's disappearing'." By the mid-1990s the interest was squarely on the interaction between ice and ocean and what a warming ocean would mean for the sea ice. There are lots of reasons to care about sea ice. It reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it heating the dark ocean below. It protects the Antarctic's ice sheets and shelves from the action of the ocean - holding back sea level rise - and it plays a vital role in overturning circulation, the ocean currents that have such an important role in regulating the planet's climate, distributing heat from the poles to the equator. In another enlightening lesson in physics, delivered again by Prof Langhorne in Mighty Indeed , we learn the freezing of the sea ice leaves the water below saltier, briny, that salty water sinks and helps drive those planet-spanning currents. "So there's a balancing on the Earth." In recent years, Prof Langhorne's interest has been at the interface between the ocean and the sea ice and the problem of measuring sea ice thickness remotely - as drilling holes through the ice in Antarctica's testing conditions is no easy task. "Without knowing how thick it is, you actually don't know how much you have, because, is it a thick slab of butter on your toast, or is it all spread out very thinly? And if you're only looking from above and seeing what the total area is, what the coverage is, then you're not including some of the energy that's tied up with the presence or absence of sea ice, and it's that energy that we really need to care about." It is the extra heat energy stored in the ocean as a result of greenhouse gas-driven planetary heating that is thought to be behind the decline in Antarctic sea ice - both in terms of the temperatures in the ocean and atmospheric influences. Concern has ramped up since 2016, when significant decreases began to be recorded. The consistent trend since has been for less sea ice. The five lowest extents recorded have all been since 2017 and 2025 is thought to be the second consecutive year with a sea ice minimum extent below 2 million km2. It's change on an epic scale: the sea ice ring around the frozen continent covers an area twice the size of Australia. So going back to Prof Langhorne's kilogram of ice example, it's possible - or possibly impossible - to understand just how much energy is bound up in these processes. Sobering, the professor says. As long as it's tied up in the sea ice, keeping the sea surface close to 0°C, it's not allowing our temperatures to go bananas, she says. We've already seen a little of what it could mean. "There are bigger storms than there used to be and that, unfortunately, that's going to be the main change for us, I think, apart from some sea level rise. The main change is just going to be storm events that get bigger and bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder because all that energy has been sucked out of the ocean and comes to us in storms and flooding events and droughts." The physicist strikes a note of optimism in the documentary, asserting that in her discipline problems are tractable. Solutions can be found. However, she concedes that to a very significant extent science has now done its work as far as climate change is concerned. The problem is now clear and we know what the solutions are. What's left is us. "I think if we're talking about the problem, in inverted commas, of climate change, and how to mitigate some of the less wanted effects of climate change, then I think the problem is that human beings are in the system too," she says. "The problem is that it's not a problem in physics; it's a problem in human behaviour, which is much more unpredictable, and much less satisfactory in my view." But she leans into the belief that human beings are wired for hope and optimism, equipped with an almost indefatigable ability to get up every morning confident that today can be better than yesterday. "I think that it takes quite a lot to completely dampen people's enthusiasm for life, actually." That's not to say Prof Langhorne hasn't had her moments. "When I retired, I thought about what I could do that would be best for the world and the conclusion I quickly came to was that the best thing I could do was die. It would be honestly the best thing I could do," she says. "But I just didn't really want to do that." Among the challenges we face, she says, is to identify the changes we regard as acceptable, that preserve the life we want to have, while at the same time making the planet a better place. "But, I mean, that's all sounding very highfalutin. I think that's what most people do, most days, is make judgements like that." Again, Prof Langhorne sees our present as a more difficult environment than she had to navigate. Young people have more decisions to make than she did, she says. A more difficult future to confront. "Climate change is physics. And if it is not going to be all right, it is not going to be all right." Dr Robinson, the oceanographer and next generation sea ice researcher, speaks to that in the documentary, saying she feels like she knows too much and shares her concern for how she talks about climate change around her young children. She is losing sleep over it. Her children will need different skills for the future they are inheriting, the climate legacy they will inherit, she says. Resilience and an ability to meet challenges among them. She tries not to think about it too much. PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart calls working in the field a mental health battle. "Because ... you know." Sometime it gets too much, she says. She has decided not to have children. For her the ice is already too thin. The film • Mighty Indeed screens as part of the Doc Edge film festival online from July 28 to August 24. •
Otago Daily Times
11-07-2025
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
Science at the end of the world
A new documentary following climate scientists to Antarctica, explains the physics of our predicament, Tom McKinlay writes. It's cold in Middlemarch, Pat Langhorn reports when she picks up the phone. "There's still ice on the puddles." It's a commonplace enough observation from the Strath Taieri in winter, but the point the professor is making is that the ice has survived late into the day, despite all attentions from the season's admittedly weak sun. Too little energy in it, given the Earth's lean, for it to return the puddle water to liquid. Emeritus Prof Langhorn knows why. "We were walking today, as I said, and there was ice on the puddles, and people were poking it and saying, 'oh look, there's still ice'. And I said, 'well, you know, it takes an awful lot of energy to melt ice, and a lot of energy to freeze it as well'." Physics is the professor's area of expertise. Ice too. Melting a kilogram of ice takes as much energy as it would to raise that same volume of water to 80°C, she explains. A revealing little truth, neatly explaining Middlemarch's slippery winter reality. But in Prof Langhorn's world it also has other more existential implications. For decades now, Prof Langhorn has been studying sea ice. Initially her field work was in the Arctic but, by the second half of the the 1980s, the focus had switched to Antarctica — she's been based at the University of Otago since 1988. At both poles sea ice has been in decline, failing to form or melting more. That's a worry. Because the sun will continue to send its heat and light, that won't change. But if the sea ice isn't there to meet it, all that energy once consumed by the business of melting is going to do other work instead. "The thought that suddenly there isn't that ice there taking up all this energy and instead it goes into heating the ocean is a bit frightening, I think," Prof Langhorn says. The physics lesson about the kilogram of ice, delivered again by Prof Langhorn, appears in a new documentary, Mighty Indeed , which will screen at this year's Doc Edge documentary film festival. It follows a couple of scientists down to the Antarctic, oceanographer Dr Natalie Robinson and microbiology PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart, representatives of a new generation walking in Prof Langhorne's snowy footsteps. There's plenty of frightening in Mighty Indeed and frightened people — the scientists — but it also manages to celebrate both women in science and the extraordinary unimagined benefits of blue-skies research, the science for science's sake that ends up making an outsized contribution to the human project. Prof Langhorne has experienced the highs and lows of both the former and the latter at first hand. The Scotswoman trained in the UK — Aberdeen then Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute — and applied to join the British Antarctic Survey back in the '70s. She made it through the first round, but then the penny dropped that "Pat" was not "Patrick" and her application went no further. "I mean, things have changed quite dramatically in the area in which I've been involved, in which I've had my career, not just in terms of the science, and, of course, the sea ice has changed dramatically, and that's a very depressing story, but a more uplifting story is that it's now much easier for any gender to be involved in science. Gender is not the issue that it once was in that line of work," she says. "So now, you know, if you go to a sea ice conference, there will be at least as many women there as men, which is quite a change." Prof Langhorne is also an advocate for the latter — curiosity and blue-skies science. "Yes, definitely. And, I mean, again, from my own personal perspective, younger people, as I got towards the end of my career, thought that I had somehow magically seen there was going to be a problem and gone searching to understand this problem, which, of course, was not the truth at all. You know, I was interested in sea ice, and at the time that I started to look at sea ice, it was really considered very sort of flippant and why would you bother?" It's a demonstration, she says, of the importance of people deciding what they're interested in and doing their very best to follow that line of inquiry. However, it's no longer a very fashionable idea, she says with regret. That's an obstacle for her young colleagues. "Blue-skies research is really important, because often it's by exploring things that we don't know that we find out things that we didn't know we were going to find out. We didn't know we didn't know them." She has observed the building expectation that science should always be at the service of some calculable, bankable output — should be innovating towards a particular application. "That's just not going to get you the best science," she says. "You can't innovate by thinking, 'well, this morning I'm going to get up and be innovative'. It's not usually the way it goes. So, yeah, I think exploration is really important." Prof Langhorne can't remember the moment when her physicist's "flippant" interest in sea ice became climate science and vitally important to the future of civilisation as we know it. Indeed, back when she started, if anyone outside the academy was giving sea ice any thought at all, it was likely to be as an impediment to drilling for oil. Not that fossil fuel was ever part of her interest. And even Prof Langhorne's first trip to the southern continent had a focus on relatively quotidian matters — on ice as a platform for vehicles and for aircraft to land on. "So there was a fairly gradual transition, I would say, from thinking about it in terms of 'here is something that's an impediment that we need to move in order to get at the oil that's inconveniently underneath the sea ice', to, goodness me, 'this sea ice is really, really important to climate, and we need to understand why it's disappearing'." By the mid-1990s the interest was squarely on the interaction between ice and ocean and what a warming ocean would mean for the sea ice. There are lots of reasons to care about sea ice. It reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it heating the dark ocean below. It protects the Antarctic's ice sheets and shelves from the action of the ocean — holding back sea level rise — and it plays a vital role in overturning circulation, the ocean currents that have such an important role in regulating the planet's climate, distributing heat from the poles to the equator. In another enlightening lesson in physics, delivered again by Prof Langhorne in Mighty Indeed , we learn the freezing of the sea ice leaves the water below saltier, briny, that salty water sinks and helps drive those planet-spanning currents. "So there's a balancing on the Earth." In recent years, Prof Langhorne's interest has been at the interface between the ocean and the sea ice and the problem of measuring sea ice thickness remotely — as drilling holes through the ice in Antarctica's testing conditions is no easy task. "Without knowing how thick it is, you actually don't know how much you have, because, is it a thick slab of butter on your toast, or is it all spread out very thinly? And if you're only looking from above and seeing what the total area is, what the coverage is, then you're not including some of the energy that's tied up with the presence or absence of sea ice, and it's that energy that we really need to care about." It is the extra heat energy stored in the ocean as a result of greenhouse gas-driven planetary heating that is thought to be behind the decline in Antarctic sea ice — both in terms of the temperatures in the ocean and atmospheric influences. Concern has ramped up since 2016, when significant decreases began to be recorded. The consistent trend since has been for less sea ice. The five lowest extents recorded have all been since 2017 and 2025 is thought to be the second consecutive year with a sea ice minimum extent below 2 million km2. It's change on an epic scale: the sea ice ring around the frozen continent covers an area twice the size of Australia. So going back to Prof Langhorne's kilogram of ice example, it's possible — or possibly impossible — to understand just how much energy is bound up in these processes. Sobering, the professor says. As long as it's tied up in the sea ice, keeping the sea surface close to 0°C, it's not allowing our temperatures to go bananas, she says. We've already seen a little of what it could mean. "There are bigger storms than there used to be and that, unfortunately, that's going to be the main change for us, I think, apart from some sea level rise. The main change is just going to be storm events that get bigger and bigger and bigger and wilder and wilder because all that energy has been sucked out of the ocean and comes to us in storms and flooding events and droughts." The physicist strikes a note of optimism in the documentary, asserting that in her discipline problems are tractable. Solutions can be found. However, she concedes that to a very significant extent science has now done its work as far as climate change is concerned. The problem is now clear and we know what the solutions are. What's left is us. "I think if we're talking about the problem, in inverted commas, of climate change, and how to mitigate some of the less wanted effects of climate change, then I think the problem is that human beings are in the system too," she says. "The problem is that it's not a problem in physics; it's a problem in human behaviour, which is much more unpredictable, and much less satisfactory in my view." But she leans into the belief that human beings are wired for hope and optimism, equipped with an almost indefatigable ability to get up every morning confident that today can be better than yesterday. "I think that it takes quite a lot to completely dampen people's enthusiasm for life, actually." That's not to say Prof Langhorne hasn't had her moments. "When I retired, I thought about what I could do that would be best for the world and the conclusion I quickly came to was that the best thing I could do was die. It would be honestly the best thing I could do," she says. "But I just didn't really want to do that." Among the challenges we face, she says, is to identify the changes we regard as acceptable, that preserve the life we want to have, while at the same time making the planet a better place. "But, I mean, that's all sounding very highfalutin. I think that's what most people do, most days, is make judgements like that." Again, Prof Langhorne sees our present as a more difficult environment than she had to navigate. Young people have more decisions to make than she did, she says. A more difficult future to confront. "Climate change is physics. And if it is not going to be all right, it is not going to be all right." Dr Robinson, the oceanographer and next generation sea ice researcher, speaks to that in the documentary, saying she feels like she knows too much and shares her concern for how she talks about climate change around her young children. She is losing sleep over it. Her children will need different skills for the future they are inheriting, the climate legacy they will inherit, she says. Resilience and an ability to meet challenges among them. She tries not to think about it too much. PhD candidate Jacqui Stewart calls working in the field a mental health battle. "Because ... you know." Sometime it gets too much, she says. She has decided not to have children. For her the ice is already too thin. The film • Mighty Indeed screens as part of the Doc Edge film festival online from July 28 to August 24. •
Scoop
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Award-Winning Kiwi Doco Trails Women Scientists On The Ice
Press Release – University of Canterbury Wells film, which was six years in the making, scooped Best Director and Best New Zealand Feature prizes at Doc Edges recent awards night, success that Wells describes as thrilling. A UC tutor's mighty new documentary filmed in Antarctica has already won two awards and is the opening night feature for Christchurch's Doc Edge Festival. Vanessa Wells, filmmaker and part-time tutor at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC), is the director of Mighty Indeed, a documentary about three women scientists studying microalgae hidden beneath Antarctic sea ice. UC's Kōawa Studios is a sponsor of the Ōtautahi Christchurch Doc Edge Festival (16 – 27 July) which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Wells' film, which was six years in the making, scooped Best Director and Best New Zealand Feature prizes at Doc Edge's recent awards night, success that Wells describes as 'thrilling'. Mighty Indeed follows Dr Natalie Robinson on a world-first expedition to McMurdo Sound; microbiologist Jacqui Stuart on her first trip south; and their mentor back in Aotearoa New Zealand, veteran sea ice physicist Professor Pat Langhorne. Wells, who has made three trips to Antarctica, met Dr Robinson in 2018 on her first visit to the Ice. She says the oceanographer quickly smashed all her pre-conceptions about scientists. 'Natalie was so down to earth and real – she too was juggling kids and a career, but in the most incredibly adventurous way. I found her so inspiring, and we have become firm friends.' She says Stuart, a PhD student, 'lit up the screen' with her enthusiasm for studying microalgae. 'Jacqui is ridiculously talented, in so many ways – and we get to share a few of those on screen.' Wells met Professor Langhorne in Antarctica New Zealand workshops as part of training before her first trip south. 'Pat immediately draws you in and you can't help but fall in love with both her and sea ice. Her legacy to global science cannot be understated, yet so few know her story.' Wells' documentary, made with support from Antarctica New Zealand, weaves together these personal stories with new and archival footage from the icy continent. Filmed in brutal, isolated conditions, Wells says the story is about communicating science in a compelling way and challenging viewers' perceptions. 'It's definitely a film that shows Antarctica in a different way. We really step inside these scientists' lives and show their inner thoughts. I would love to shift the way people look at the world and shift their perspective and connection to these wild places. If we can shift beliefs, then we might be able to change our behaviour and take better care of the climate.' Wells, who also made the 2019 documentary East to East about a group of Aranui High School students competing in the iconic Coast to Coast race, enjoys making films that drive social change. She says it made sense as a Christchurch local to make a film exploring the city's 'gateway to Antarctica' status. While the title of the new film comes from the name of a song Stuart wrote about plankton, which features in the documentary, Wells says it's also a hopeful title for what is ultimately – despite some gritty moments – a positive and uplifting film. Mighty Indeed is also likely to become a teaching tool for UC Bachelor of Digital Screen with Honours students, she says. 'I'm a doco-lover and there's nothing like real-world experience, so this is definitely something I'll be sharing with students to help them prepare for working in the industry.' Wells' fellow UC film tutor Ollie Dawe was a development editor on Mighty Indeed and also produced and directed the short film, I Know I'm Going to Paint about artist Philip Trusttum which features in the Shorts 2 Collection of Doc Edge. UC Bachelor of Digital Screen with Honours student Evienne Jones has won a Doc Edge Best Tertiary Film award for her film Ally, exploring queer identity in Aotearoa. The Christchurch premiere screening of Mighty Indeed is at 7pm on Wednesday 16 July at Hoyts EntX Cinema followed by a Q&A session with director Vanessa WellsandProfessor Pat Langhorne, Jacqui Stuart, and Dr Natalie Robinson. An extra screening of Mighty Indeed has been added to the Doc Edge festival programme at Lumiere Cinemas, 6.15pm on Friday 18 July.
Scoop
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Award-Winning Kiwi Doco Trails Women Scientists On The Ice
A UC tutor's mighty new documentary filmed in Antarctica has already won two awards and is the opening night feature for Christchurch's Doc Edge Festival. Vanessa Wells, filmmaker and part-time tutor at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC), is the director of Mighty Indeed, a documentary about three women scientists studying microalgae hidden beneath Antarctic sea ice. UC's Kōawa Studios is a sponsor of the Ōtautahi Christchurch Doc Edge Festival (16 - 27 July) which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Wells' film, which was six years in the making, scooped Best Director and Best New Zealand Feature prizes at Doc Edge's recent awards night, success that Wells describes as 'thrilling'. Mighty Indeed follows Dr Natalie Robinson on a world-first expedition to McMurdo Sound; microbiologist Jacqui Stuart on her first trip south; and their mentor back in Aotearoa New Zealand, veteran sea ice physicist Professor Pat Langhorne. Wells, who has made three trips to Antarctica, met Dr Robinson in 2018 on her first visit to the Ice. She says the oceanographer quickly smashed all her pre-conceptions about scientists. 'Natalie was so down to earth and real – she too was juggling kids and a career, but in the most incredibly adventurous way. I found her so inspiring, and we have become firm friends.' She says Stuart, a PhD student, 'lit up the screen' with her enthusiasm for studying microalgae. 'Jacqui is ridiculously talented, in so many ways – and we get to share a few of those on screen.' Wells met Professor Langhorne in Antarctica New Zealand workshops as part of training before her first trip south. 'Pat immediately draws you in and you can't help but fall in love with both her and sea ice. Her legacy to global science cannot be understated, yet so few know her story.' Wells' documentary, made with support from Antarctica New Zealand, weaves together these personal stories with new and archival footage from the icy continent. Filmed in brutal, isolated conditions, Wells says the story is about communicating science in a compelling way and challenging viewers' perceptions. 'It's definitely a film that shows Antarctica in a different way. We really step inside these scientists' lives and show their inner thoughts. I would love to shift the way people look at the world and shift their perspective and connection to these wild places. If we can shift beliefs, then we might be able to change our behaviour and take better care of the climate.' Wells, who also made the 2019 documentary East to East about a group of Aranui High School students competing in the iconic Coast to Coast race, enjoys making films that drive social change. She says it made sense as a Christchurch local to make a film exploring the city's 'gateway to Antarctica' status. While the title of the new film comes from the name of a song Stuart wrote about plankton, which features in the documentary, Wells says it's also a hopeful title for what is ultimately – despite some gritty moments - a positive and uplifting film. Mighty Indeed is also likely to become a teaching tool for UC Bachelor of Digital Screen with Honours students, she says. 'I'm a doco-lover and there's nothing like real-world experience, so this is definitely something I'll be sharing with students to help them prepare for working in the industry.' Wells' fellow UC film tutor Ollie Dawe was a development editor on Mighty Indeed and also produced and directed the short film, I Know I'm Going to Paint about artist Philip Trusttum which features in the Shorts 2 Collection of Doc Edge. UC Bachelor of Digital Screen with Honours student Evienne Jones has won a Doc Edge Best Tertiary Film award for her film Ally, exploring queer identity in Aotearoa. The Christchurch premiere screening of Mighty Indeed is at 7pm on Wednesday 16 July at Hoyts EntX Cinema followed by a Q&A session with director Vanessa WellsandProfessor Pat Langhorne, Jacqui Stuart, and Dr Natalie Robinson. An extra screening of Mighty Indeed has been added to the Doc Edge festival programme at Lumiere Cinemas, 6.15pm on Friday 18 July.
Scoop
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Doc Edge Awards 2025: Mighty Indeed And The Pool Take Top Honours And Oscar® Consideration
On Thursday evening Doc Edge held their annual awards as part of the 2025 Doc Edge Festival at The Grand Millennium Hotel in Auckland. Twenty-four awards were announced to honour and celebrate the superb documentaries and filmmakers, from both New Zealand and internationally, participating in this year's programme. Doc Edge is an Academy Awards qualifying festival for feature and short documentary films. The winners of Best NZ Short, NZ Feature, International Feature and International Short are eligible for consideration for the 2026 Academy Awards. Mighty Indeed from New Zealand director Vanessa Wells and The Pool by Australian filmmaker Ian Darling emerged as the night's most awarded films, with Wells' taking out two awards and Darling's film taking home three. Mighty Indeed was awarded Best New Zealand Feature and Best Director. The film follows three women working in Antarctica across four decades, exploring science, climate, and survival in one of the world's harshest environments. The jury praised the work for its 'quiet strength, emotional depth, and clear directorial vision, gracefully executed.' Wildboy by Brando Yelavich and Toby Schmutzler received Best Editing and Best Cinematography, with the jury applauding 'its relentless commitment to capturing both nature in all its grandeur and personal challenges in all their intimacy'. Three Days in February directed by Serena Stevenson was awarded Best Sound, with the jury noting its 'evocative, immersive, and emotional aural design that transports the viewer to a magical place outside of time and day-to-day drudgery.' Little Potato, directed by Chen Chen, won Best New Zealand Short for what the jury described as 'artistic photography, an unflinching camera, and bravery and vulnerability in sharing intimate moments about a sensitive topic often kept behind closed doors.' The Best New Zealand Emerging Filmmaker award went to Caleb Young for Nothing is Impossible: The Primanavia Story and Best Tertiary Film was awarded to Ally, directed by Evienne Jones from the University of Canterbury. Best International Feature went to The Pool (Australia), directed by Ian Darling. The jury described it as ' a compelling and beautifully crafted work that transforms a seemingly simple subject into a powerful exploration of the human condition,'. The film also took our Best International Editing and Best International Cinematography. The Dating Game (United States), directed by Violet Du Feng, was awarded Best International Director and received a Special Mention for Best International Short. The jury praised the film for 'delivering on all fronts – from strong casting and beautiful cinematography to mindful editing, a remarkable achievement from a director to watch.' On Healing Land, Birds Perch (USA/Vietnam), directed by Naja Phm Lockwood, won Best International Short and In Waves and War took out Best International Sound. Ruby Chen, the previously announced recipient of the Doc Edge Superhero Award, was celebrated and formally presented with her award on the night. Ruby Chen is a tireless advocate for independent storytellers, she has played a pivotal role in elevating the global presence of Chinese and Asian documentaries and in nurturing a new generation of documentary talent. The 2025 festival programme boasts 90 titles including feature films, shorts and immersive projects. Screenings continue in Auckland until 13 July, before heading to Wellington and Christchurch from 16 to 27 July, and online via the Doc Edge Virtual Cinema from 28 July to 24 August. Full list of Doc Edge Awards 2025 Winners: New Zealand Award Winners Best New Zealand Short: Little Potato (Dir. Chen Chen) Best New Zealand Feature: Mighty Indeed (Dir. Vanessa Wells) Special Mention: Devils on Horses (Dir. Edward Sampson) Best New Zealand Director: Vanessa Wells (Mighty Indeed) Best New Zealand Editing: Wildboy Best New Zealand Cinematography: Wildboy Best New Zealand Sound: Three Days in February Best New Zealand Emerging Filmmaker: Caleb Young (Nothing is Impossible: The Primanavia Story) New Zealand Student Award Winners Best Tertiary Film: Ally (Dir. Evienne Jones) University of Canterbury, Christchurch Special Mention: Don't Forget Us (Dir. Maria Hewison) South Seas Film School, Auckland International Award Winners Best International Short: On Healing Land, Birds Perch (USA, Vietnam, Dir. Naja Phm Lockwood) Best International Feature: The Pool (Australia, Dir. Ian Darling) Special Mention: The Dating Game (United States, Dir. Violet Du Feng) Special Mention: Before the Moon Falls (United States, Dir. Kimberlee Bassford) Best International Director: Violet Du Feng (The Dating Game) Best International Editing: The Pool Best International Cinematography: The Pool Best International Sound: In Waves and War Festival Category Winners Being Oneself: A Quiet Love The Art of Storytelling: Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror Tides of Change: Food Delivery: Fresh from the West Philippine Sea Facing the Edge: In Waves and War In Truth We Trust: Blame The Edge of Impact: Yurlu | Country Immersive Impact Winners New Zealand Project: The Visitors Book (Created by Rewa Rendall) International Project: Kapwa (USA, Created by Michaela Ternasky-Holland, Aaron Santiago) Doc Edge Superhero Ruby Chen Stay updated with the latest news and announcements by visiting and following Doc Edge on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube. Film stills available here.
