Senior Lecturer Gwen Isaac (College of Creative Arts) made a strong impression with her latest feature documentary Ms. Information (2023). Isaac’s camera follows Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles (University of Auckland) as she navigates the challenge of educating New Zealand during the fast-paced, ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic and the need to lock down to save lives. Shortly after the media and advisory communications begin flooding Wiles’ phone and computer, the personal abuse and attacks start. Ms. Information documents the early pandemic frenzy, a scientist’s intense efforts to safeguard the country as part of a broader team, and the effects on Wiles’ daughter and partner as they become satellites to her unwitting spotlight.
Isaac’s documentary was selected for Whānau Mārama: NZ International Film Festival (NZIFF), Festival International du Film Oceanien Tahiti (FIFO) and was a finalist for the Dumbo Film Festival. Among many notable screening picks, the Royal Society Te Apārangi hosted a command performance in October 2023. In October 2024, Science Technicians’ Association of New Zealand chose it as their one conference screening. Isaac is taking the film to Rotterdam International Film Festival to explore European distribution opportunities.
Audience filing in for the sold-out premiere at Wellington’s historic Embassy Theatre.
The film has received high praise from critics and viewers. New Zealand film critic Graeme Tuckett said (24 October 2023), “as an unexpected prism through which to understand what the hell has happened to us all in the last three years, Ms. Information is essential.”
The project
Early in 2020, as Isaac was heading to Japan to make a film about a New Zealand mixed martial arts fighter, COVID-19 hit. A fortuitous meeting enabled her to shift focus to making a short documentary about microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles. Once she completed the short documentary Siouxsie & the Virus, the filming continued throughout 2020 and 2021. Wiles and her family generously permitted Isaac to document Wiles’ intense efforts to educate and inform Aotearoa New Zealand’s team of 5 million. In so doing, Isaac and Wiles also recorded the abuse Wiles continued to experience as a reaction to her science communication efforts.
Isaac directing Wiles, husband Steven Galbraith and daughter Eve.
The intimate, observational and participatary documentary film style gently brings the viewer into the overlap between Wiles’ science communication mahi and her personal life. We see a scientist deeply committed to her research, to communicating scientific knowledge to the wider public, and to the overall state of public health. She genuinely wants to educate people, but – more so – desperately wants to save lives during arguably the most disruptive global pandemic in over a century.
"a bracing, sometimes shocking and superbly watchable film. Isaac had unprecedented access to our Covid response, and also to the splintering of our country. She has made a film that honours and interweaves those twin narratives in a way that tells both stories – and allows those stories to inform each other. Ms. Information is a very special achievement of editing and of sheer storytelling nous." ~ Film critic Graeme Tuckett, Stuff, 24 October 2023
Isaac’s mastery allows the audience a behind-the-scenes lens into the science communication that informed our ‘team of 5 million’ about viruses, exponential spreading and best management practices. Isaac’s lens also exposes another side of our national team, one of misogyny, anti-science and ignorance-based fear. The film comes with a warning: “All the threats in this film are real.” Isaac’s focus though balances the scales in the film to emphasise the strength of Wiles, her family and our country overall.
Impact
Only published this year, the considerable and immediate impact already comes through in the ways viewers respond to it. Film critic Graeme Tuckett reports in the Sunday Star-Times (7 July 2024) he witnessed “standing ovations and a few people quite happily crying their eyes out” at multiple screenings.
A Massey Tutor at the Dubbing Suite.
When asked about their top 2 takeaways from seeing Ms. Information, viewers reported learning about how important science communication is and the need to support that communication. They recognised that women need to be brave to make a difference, and we’re lucky to have those brave women. Some viewers acknowledged that scared people look for a scapegoat, and women are more likely to receive hate than men if they are bravely making a difference.
When asked what the documentary revealed to them about the country’s current culture, some were surprised about how nasty people can be and how much more diverse and complex it is than they thought prior.
Ms. Information also compelled some viewers to change their own behaviours, specifically online and towards women, as well as provided a mirror to other women’s experiences. Viewers felt a call to action in being more courageous in standing up against online abuse and violence and being more supportive and less judgmental.
"The main message I got from this documentary is the need to protect those who do such difficult mahi. We would be outraged if nurses or firefighters weren’t provided protective equipment to shelter their health in the line of duty, let’s not pretend that a scientist doing their job is any different." ~ Georgia Carson, in the New Zealand Science Review (2022)
The full impact of the documentary is yet to be felt. Viewing has so far been limited to festival screenings and renting it online at AroVision and DocPlay. In time, we will be able to look back and reflect honestly on what happened to Wiles and to all of us during those 2 scary years. Ms. Information is bound to inform us as a nation.
As for the documentary’s subject, Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles is grateful for the care and compassion with which Isaac has told her story. She hopes that the film will help people start to understand what she and her family have experienced and are still experiencing because of Wiles’ COVID-19 science communication work. But more than that, Wiles is grateful that through the film the public gets a glimpse of her amazing family without whom she wouldn’t be where she is today.
Isaac with Wiles’ family on location.
Isaac’s documentary portfolio
In addition to Siouxsie and the Virus and Ms. Information, Isaac has directed and produced the feature documentary Where There Is Life (2017), which was selected to screen in multiple international film festivals and won Best First Time Film Director at the London Independent Film Awards. Isaac also directed the short documentary Tokyo Woman (2021) and presented Women in the Wild (2023) at the Visible Evidence XXIX conference.
NZ on Screen: Where There Is Life
Ms. Information Credits
Director – Gwen Isaac
Producers – Alex Reed, Phillida Perry, Gwen Isaac
Cinematography – Gareth Moon
Editor – John Silvestor
Animation – Ruben O’Hara
Music – David Long
Gwen Isaac
Discover more about the filmmaker behind Ms. Information.
Gwen Isaac
Gwen Isaac is a factual and documentary filmmaker who cut her teeth directing docu-series for BBC Scotland, NBC (USA) and ITV London. Her teaching practice fuses a screen production skillset with ethical and inclusive creative leadership towards a dynamic studio-based learning environment for students. Her most recent feature film, Ms. Information, was selected for the NZIFF 2023.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
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