Stage and screen veteran Fiona Samuel has been awarded this year's Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship by the Arts Foundation. The writer, director and actor will live and write in Menton, in southern France, next year for three months with all expenses covered.
Fiona will have the use of a room beneath Villa Isola Bella where Katherine Mansfield spent time after she contracted tuberculosis during 1919-1920. Fiona trained as an actor at Toi Whakaari before her groundbreaking TV drama series, The Marching Girls in 1987 which starred ten young female leads. She broke convention by putting women centre stage in complex and intelligent roles.
She has written award-winning scripts for the stage and both the small and big screen and her latest film Pike River starring Melanie Lynskey and Robyn Malcolm opens in theatres on the 30th October. Fiona was named an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2012 and was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019 for services to television and theatre. She joins Culture 101.
