Paul Regan Swadel (23 October 1968 – 18 March 2016) was a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

film director and producer.

Life and career

Swadel nurtured a filmmaking partnership with James Cunningham that spanned fifteen years and four globally successful short films. Their film ''Infection'' competed at

Cannes International Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around t ...

2000,

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

2001 and twenty other international film festivals. Paul and James developed an indie

performance capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for val ...

driven CGI film ''Marshal'' with

Mark Ordesky Mark Lowell Ordesky (born April 22, 1963) is an American film producer, television producer and studio executive. He is best known for executive producing the Oscar winning The Lord of the Rings (film series), ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilo ...

, executive producer of

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

. Their proof of concept short film ''Poppy'', was shot on the Weta Digital

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...

soundstage. ''Poppy'' features

Matthew Sunderland Matthew Sunderland (born c. 1972) is a New Zealand actor, writer, and director. He performed the lead role of David Gray in the feature film ''Out of the Blue'', based on the events of the Aramoana Massacre. At the New Zealand Screen Awards in ...

, winner of Best Actor Award at the 2008 NZ Screen Awards. Swadel was a co-executive producer of Headstrong with Ant Timpson and Leanne Saunders. Their feature film '' The Devil Dared Me To'' had its world premiere at

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

and screened at over twenty International Film Festivals. It has been sold to Wild Bunch for the United Kingdom,

Vivendi Vivendi SE (stylized in all lowercase) is a French investment company headquartered in Paris. It currently wholly-owns Gameloft as well as a number of investments in several companies, primarily involved in content, entertainment, media, and t ...

for the United States and Boll AG for rest of the world. Their second feature film ''A Song of Good'' began its festival run with a World Premiere at

Rotterdam Film Festival International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, ...

where it sold out all of its screenings. It garnered 5 nominations at the 2008 New Zealand Screen Awards, and won a ''Best Picture'' Award. He also directed a significant number of award-winning art documentaries around the world. These range in subject from

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...

at the New York

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...

, ''The Understudy'', to an award-winning six-hour series on the history of New Zealand Art, ''The Big Picture'' presented by

Hamish Keith Hamish Henry Cordy Keith (born 15 August 1936) is a New Zealand writer, art curator, arts consultant and social commentator. Introduction Keith has been writing about and working with the arts in New Zealand for almost half a century. He has ...

, which garnered three nominations at the 2008 New Zealand Screen Awards, and won Best Series and Best Music awards.''THE BIG PICTURE – 2008 Awards''
Swadel died on 18 March 2016, after suffering from

early-onset Alzheimer's disease Early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD), also called younger-onset Alzheimer's disease (YOAD), is Alzheimer's disease diagnosed before the age of 65. It is an uncommon form of Alzheimer's, accounting for only 5–10% of all Alzheimer's cases. Ab ...

. He was survived by his son Felix, as well as his parents, siblings and other family members.

Gallery

File:McCahon I Am.jpg, Poster of ''Colin McCahon: I Am'' (2004)

Filmography

References

External links

*
''Poppy'': Short film official website

''Blue Harvest'': Executive Producing Shorts w/- NZFC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Swadel, Paul 1969 births 2016 deaths New Zealand film directors New Zealand film producers University of Auckland alumni University of Canterbury alumni