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

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

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 Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

2000, Sundance Film Festival 2001 and twenty other international film festivals. Paul and James developed an indie

performance capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

driven CGI film ''Marshal'' with Mark Ordesky, executive producer of

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

. Their proof of concept short film ''Poppy'', was shot on the Weta Digital motion capture soundstage. ''Poppy'' features Matthew Sunderland, winner of Best Actor Award at the 2008 NZ Screen Awards. Swadel was a co-executive producer of Headstrong with

Ant Timpson Ant Timpson (born 21 April 1966) is a New Zealand film producer best known for producing '' The ABCs of Death'' series, ''Turbo Kid'', '' Deathgasm'' and '' The Greasy Strangler''. He founded and hosts the 48Hours film contest. Career In 200 ...

and Leanne Saunders. Their feature film '' The Devil Dared Me To'' had its world premiere at SXSW and screened at over twenty International Film Festivals. It has been sold to Wild Bunch for the United Kingdom,

Vivendi Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...

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

, ''The Understudy'', to an award-winning six-hour series on the history of New Zealand Art, ''The Big Picture'' presented by Hamish Keith, 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, also called younger-onset Alzheimer's, 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. About 60% have a positive ...

. 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