Sarkies began making short films as a teenager with fellow filmmaker
Simon Perkins and Lindsay Chalmers. After winning an international award for his short
Dream-makers, Sarkies began work on his most ambitious short to date: adventure comedy
Signing Off (1996), which won four international awards and helped attract funding for
Scarfies (1999), his feature debut.
Signing Off was produced by film and television producer Lisa Chatfield. Sarkies co-wrote the
Scarfies script with his younger brother, playwright and performer
Duncan, and producer Lisa Chatfield. Winner of seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the NZ Film Awards, and a local hit, the film is part comedy, part thriller, and partly a celebration of being a university student in Dunedin.
Scarfies was later released on video in the United States under the title
Crime 101. Sarkies followed
Scarfies in 2006 with the drama film
Out of the Blue, produced by New Zealand producer
Tim White. The film was based on the 1990
Aramoana Massacre, in which a gunman killed thirteen people in a seaside town close to Dunedin. The film emphasizes realism over melodrama, partly through handheld camerawork and a naturalistic acting style. Some of those living in Aramoana expressed opposition to the film being made; others who lost people in the tragedy agreed to do interviews with scriptwriters Sarkies and Graeme Tetley. In New Zealand,
Out of the Blue became the tenth most successful local film yet released theatrically (not accounting for inflation). It also won six
Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2008, including "Best Picture - budget over $1 million". Sarkies' third feature was 2012 black comedy
Two Little Boys, starring
Bret McKenzie and Australian actor and comedian
Hamish Blake. The film is based on a book by Duncan Sarkies, about two sometime friends trying to hide the body of a tourist whom one of them has accidentally killed. In 2010, dystopian TV series
This Is Not My Life debuted on
New Zealand television. The series centres around a man (played by
Charles Mesure) who wakes up with no knowledge of the woman he appears to be married to, his children or job. Directed by Sarkies and Peter Salmon, it won a 2011 New Zealand television award for best drama series. Sarkies first
telemovie,
Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story, which he also co-wrote, was again produced by Tim White. The award-winning film, which went to air in 2014, In 2016 Sarkies directed another TV movie,
Jean, and his film
Pike River is in production.
Unproduced scripts Before making
Out of the Blue, the Sarkies brothers collaborated on the script for a proposed fantasy film called
The Magnificent Magic Fingers. The budget for
Magic Fingers was estimated to be at least NZ$20 million. ==Filmography==