Dr Paul Wolffram is an award winning director and producer. His work seeks to push the boundaries of traditional documentary exploring the way we understand the world around us. His films engage with culture, music, and people, and weave images and sound in compelling and poetic ways.
Paul Wolffram lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand where he teaches film production at Victoria University of Wellington. Paul began making films while studying music at University. During his PhD field research on the music and dance traditions of a remote community in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, he began to study the potential of film to explore culture and music.
Several films have resulted from Paul's time among the Lak people in Papua New Guinea including Rubber's Kastom 2011 and Stori Tumbuna: Ancestors' Tales 2011. Stori Tumbuna: Ancestors' Tales has travelled widely and played at more than 30 international documentary and ethnographic film festivals.
In addition Paul has worked with a number of Pacific communities creating documentaries on subjects and stories that are important to the people he works with. He has worked with the Banaban people, a displaced Micronesian culture now relocated to the Fijian Islands; the Tokelauan community, on a film about traditional women's arts; and with the Deaf community in New Zealand. These films have been screened internationally in festivals and television broadcasts in New Zealand and overseas.
Paul's films have received international acclaim including the Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology in 2012, Best Audio Visual Documentation at the Parnu International Documentary Film Festival 2013, and the Awesome Award from the Aperture International Ethnographic Film Festival in 2013.
