Hugh MacDonald (filmmaker)


Hugh MacDonald is a New Zealand film director who made films for the Government National Film Unit for over two decades, before going solo. His work includes many travel films and two episodes of ambitious historical drama The Governor.
Macdonald directed the short film This is New Zealand which was shown across three screens in the New Zealand pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka. Other memorable elements in the pavilion included John Drawbridge’s mural and Sue Skerman’s silkscreened perspex bushwalk. The film went on to attract strong audiences back in New Zealand.
In 1986 Macdonald was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short Film as producer of The Frog, The Dog and The Devil, made with the New Zealand National Film Unit and Martin Townsend.
In August 2017, Macdonald presented at the the biographical documentary "", which describes the 9-decades-long life of the Wellington-based natural historian, illustrator and writer Sheila Natusch. The movie was filmed over three years, mostly in Wellington and Stewart Island.