Karen Sidney

Karen Sidney, Maori/European from Aotearoa/New Zealand, is an award-winning drama scriptwriter with broad experience across film and television as a producer, writer, director and researcher with an emphasis on Maori film and television.
Her awards are the Te Haa Maori Writers Committee award for Children’s writing; the inaugral Alanis Ombomsawin Award (Dreamspeakers Festival, Canada) as writer of drama ‘Kahu and Maia’; and Best of the Festival (ImagineNative Festival,Canada) as Writer/Producer of ‘Mataora’ from the Aroha Maori Drama series.
After gaining a BA double major in Maori and Anthropology, she entered the NZ Screen Industries in the mid 1980's, contracting in Production, Scriptwriting and Research. She also Produced both Doco and Drama for self and co-owned Production companies including the 6 part Aroha Maori Drama series, where she also wrote the Episode: ‘Mataora’.
She has been a representative on Film Industry representative bodies: Te Manu Aute, Te Ara Whakaata, Nga Aho Whakaari (Maori screen producers) and the inaugral NZ Writers Foundation (now Script to Screen). She has attended international film and television and arts festivals and marketplaces representing her productions.
Now based in Northland, she runs production companies, and recently worked as Creative Manager for Creative Northland, where she produced and directed an ongoing doco series on Maori women Artists, and before that was General Manager of Whangarei’s regional TV Station Channel North.