Peata Panoho

Peata Panoho was born in Auckland, New Zealand; the second child in a musical family of seven. Both her parents are mixed-race, with her father of Maori & Scottish descent, while her mother is of English and Malaysian-Chinese ancestry. Peata and her family moved to Blenheim, a small town in the South Island of New Zealand in the early 2000's. There she became involved in the performing arts from the age of four, appearing regularly in dance shows, chamber music concerts and community theatre productions. She studied at Te Wananga o Aotearoa, a Maori tertiary institution, graduating in 2021. Her first real involvement in the film industry was at age 19, when she took on the role of Wardrobe Supervisor for the film Northspur. Realising a passion for film, she worked on 10 different short films the following year, branching out into First Assistant Cameraman and stunt work. Peata's first big acting role came at the age of 20, when she was cast as Tuptim in a stage production of "The King & I". She then starred in a short film, War Paint, in 2021 which won several international festival awards for best drama and earned her a Best Actress nomination in the 2021 Top of the South Island Film Festival.