John Mandelberg

John Mandelberg is an Australian Filmmaker and academic who lives in New Zealand. After working in the Australian film and television Industry for 30 years, John moved to Hamilton, New Zealand, to take up an academic role teaching Film Production in a Media Arts Degree programme, tutoring Undergraduate and Post Graduate students.

His award-winning documentary films have been seen all over the world, including:

WATANI HABIBI, MY BELOVED HOMELAND (NZ 2007-13) about Palestinian Protest music.

YANIV SAVES THE WORLD (NZ, 2020) A tale of a high school student and autistic artist, who develops an international following for his eco-themed artwork.

LEWIS MORLEY, PHOTOGRAPHER (Australia 2003, 2013) two documentary portraits of Morley's photography and his career documenting the 'swinging sixties' in London, how he changed the way theatre was photographed.

A DOUBLE LIFE (Australia,1996) about a Serbian writer B. Wongar who emigrates to Australia in the early 1960s, and became a controversial writer of fiction focussing on Aboriginal life and the class of cultures.

CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN THEREMIN AND SOPRANO (2016) is about the making of an audio-visual work for live performance. Composer David Sidwell and director John Mandelberg take a research trip to Moscow and Kazan in search of ideas for this work based on synaesthesia. The premiere live performance featured world-renowned theraminist, Lydia Kavina, performing with New Zealand musicians with projected images supporting the work.

Filmography

TOTEM & ORE » TOTEM & ORE explores the effects of Nuclear bombs and weapons testing across the globe, from the Manhattan Project’s first Atomic bomb test in the desert of Nevada, to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in 1945, and the first British thermonuclear test at Christmas Island in the Gilbert Island chain in the North Pacific in 1963...