The Story Department is passionately committed to developing documentaries for the local and international market place.
In response to a global thirst for content and the rapid growth in documentary film and doco-series consumption we have extended our film production offering to include long form storytelling, bringing short form TVC content production and long form documentary production together under the same roof.
With documentary film credits including Searching for Michael Peterson (2009) and #whilewewatch (2012), Eight has a long history of documentary film making and it has been a dream of ours to build a dedicated doco-department. Helmed by award winning documentary filmmaker, Leanne Pooley, The Story Department has the tools, talent and expertise to make the dream a reality.
While non-fiction documentary storytelling is a world away from commercial advertising, The Story Department offers opportunities to collaborate with agencies and clients on projects that merge non-fiction stories and branded content. The Story Department has a number of projects in development and we are putting out the call for ideas.
Leanne Pooley has been a documentary filmmaker for over twenty-five years and has directed films all over the world. She has worked with the BBC, Channel 4, PBS, Discovery, National Geographic, The ABC, The CBC, TVNZ, ARTE amongst many others.
In 2011 Leanne’s contribution to the film industry was recognised by the NZ Arts Foundation and she was made an Arts Laureate. Leanne was named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Documentary in 2017, the same year she was admitted to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (The Oscars). Her successes include “Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls” which won Best Documentary at The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) alongside 21 other international awards.
“Beyond The Edge” her Everest film has won numerous prizes including runner-up at TIFF and has screened theatrically around the globe. Leanne’s animated documentary “25 April” was long listed for an Oscar and her most recent movie about mental health activist Jazz Thornton “The Girl On The Bridge” is being lauded as an important social impact film with the power to inspire change, receiving endorsements from among others the W.H.O.
