John Banas

John Banas is a New Zealander writer, director, actor and teacher who has, for over forty years, worked extensively in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. He began as an actor, writer and director in Kiwi theatre during the 1970s, Banas increasingly focused on dramatic writing for television from the 80s on. After relocating to Australia, he established himself as a prolific TV screenwriter with a string of iconic shows, including Blue Heelers and City Homicide. His many New Zealand scripts include Bombshell and award-winning telemovies Siege and How to Murder Your Wife.

Works

The Lost Boys of Dilworth

Through first-hand accounts and dramatic re-enactments, the survivors of historic systemic abuse at Auckland’s Dilworth School bravely tell their stories.

Release Date:2024-04-14

Department:Writing

Job:Script Editor

The Red Shoes: Next Step

Sam is a gifted young dancer whose world spirals after an unexpected, life-changing event. Sam walks away from dancing and ballet, but the art form is in her blood, and she can’t resist the temptation to return. Life eventually leads Sam back to her old dance school – but not as a dancer. An old rival, a long-time crush, and her former dance teacher guide Sam back to what she loves most, but ultimately, it’s her own emotions and fears that she must confront to reignite her deep passion for dance.

Release Date:2023-04-06

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:9

Destination Love

Madison has the chance to pursue her love of event management when her two best friends announce their engagement. Finding a pre-planned wedding package on a remote island vineyard in New Zealand, Madison teams up with David, the handsome vineyard owner, to re-imagine the event for her friends.

Release Date:2022-01-06

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:9

Love Knots

Jodie Carpenter is the owner of 'The Loft', her family's sail-making company located near quaint Redmond's Bay Marina. When luxury developer Charles Prescott purchases the port looking to carry out a lavish expansion, Jodie fears that her business and heritage will be torn down and replaced.

Release Date:2021-12-31

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:9

Toke

Drama set in the sleepy town of Tokerangi, New Zealand in which three laid-back orchard workers accidentally grow a strong strain of marijuana.

Release Date:2020-09-14

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:1

Ablaze

In November 1947 forty-one people died in a massive blaze that gutted the huge Ballantynes Department Store complex in the heart of Christchurch’s business district. This is the tragic story of New Zealand’s worst fire disaster.

Release Date:2019-09-29

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Straight Forward

After a family member is murdered, con woman Silvia decides to get even by robbing the crime boss behind the hit. But things go awry, and she has to flee to New Zeeland and start a completely different life.

Release Date:2019-04-17

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:1

In a Flash

This drama tells the true story of the six Elim College students and their teacher who tragically lost their lives in a flash flood, a traumatic experience for the college and New Zealand.

Release Date:2018-07-01

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Resolve

Based on the true story of Chris Crean, who took a stand against gang violence in his community only to become a target himself.

Release Date:2017-07-23

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:1

Pike River

On the 19th of November 2010, the Pike River mine exploded with 31 men trapped inside. In the immediate confusion that followed no one knew what had happened. Within hours two men would manage a heroic escape but 29 remained unaccounted for. Over five days the men’s families and loved ones waited, hoping they would come out alive. Then two further explosions sealed the men’s fate. However, the fuse that would eventually snuff out so many lives was lit decades before. Set in the drama of the five days between the three explosions, Pike River reveals the tragic back story of the mine where pressure for profits would eventually contribute to the deaths of 29 men. Featuring interviews with the Pike River families and scripted drama to depict key events.

Release Date:2016-11-21

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Bombshell

How the tragic death of one man triggered a David and Goliath battle between two Allies that echoed around the world and became the catalyst to end nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Release Date:2016-10-09

Department:Writing

Job:Screenplay

Vote Count:2

The Monster of Mangatiti

When 19 year old Heather Walsh accepts a job on a farm in the Mangatiti Valley, she has no idea paradise will become a nightmare. This true New Zealand story tells of Heather's horrific ordeal.

Release Date:2015-09-06

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:18

Venus and Mars

When an attack on a Palmerston North fraud detective made headlines in October 1996, the New Zealand public followed the media reports with fascination. They read like a plot of a Hollywood film or detective novel. Poison pen letters, satanic worship, a police hate crime, and a mysterious and violent pyromaniac. But little did the public know that as the truth emerged, the story was going to get far more bizarre, and the police would turn the focus of their investigation on one of their own.

Release Date:2015-08-23

Department:Directing

Job:Director

How to Murder Your Wife

A black comedy based on the true story of Alfred Benning's outlandish attempts to murder his overbearing wife in 1977.

Release Date:2015-08-16

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:9

Siege

On the 7th of May 2009, Senior Constables Len Snee, Grant Diver and Bruce Miller arrived at 41 Chaucer Rd in Napier to serve a search warrant on Jan Molenaar for the growing of cannabis. This was just a routine warrant, something they had done countless times. What was meant to be an ordinary procedure turned into three of New Zealand’s darkest days and ended with one police officer dead, two officers critically injured and a member of the public fighting for his life. In some fifty hours Jan Molenaar made a permanent and devastating imprint upon the national psyche of New Zealand as he changed the lives of individuals, families, a police community, and a city. The siege was one of the worst and unexpected cases of violence both Napier and New Zealand had witnessed and it was all the more shocking because of its ordinary suburban backdrop.

Release Date:2012-06-17

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:4

Safe House

Safe House is the story of a struggle for survival in an unfamiliar and threatening world, based on the true life experience of a woman in the early days of the witness protection programme in New Zealand. TV Movie

Release Date:2012-06-09

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Vote Count:2

Tricky Business

Warm, funny and moving, Tricky Business looks at the lengths people go to get themselves out of trouble - financial trouble, emotional trouble, growing up trouble, relationship trouble… things we all have to deal with at some time or other.

Release Date:2012-05-14

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:1

Vote Count:2

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Our lady sleuth sashays through the back lanes and jazz clubs of late 1920’s Melbourne, fighting injustice with her pearl handled pistol and her dagger sharp wit. Leaving a trail of admirers in her wake, our thoroughly modern heroine makes sure she enjoys every moment of her lucky life. Based on author Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery novels.

Release Date:2012-02-24

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:4

Vote Count:147

Underbelly NZ: Land of the Long Green Cloud

Underbelly NZ: Land of the Long Green Cloud is a six-part New Zealand television mini-series. The series originally aired from 17 August 2011 to 21 September 2011. It was the first Underbelly series to be created outside of Australia, and depicts events prior to and concurrent with Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities.

Release Date:2011-08-17

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:6

Vote Count:2

City Homicide

City Homicide follows a group of detectives in the Homicide department of Melbourne's Metropolitan Police Headquarters.

Release Date:2007-08-27

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Vote Count:10

headLand

Headland is an Australian drama television series produced by the Seven Network which ran from 15 November 2005 to 21 January 2006. The Seven Network filmed 52 episodes in the first series. Production on the second series had begun before any episodes were aired. Set in a university, Headland premiered in Australia on Tuesday, 15 November 2005 at 7.30pm. On 23 January 2006, the Seven Network officially announced that the series has been cancelled. The show aired on weekdays at 7.30pm in the United Kingdom on E4, re-formatted as half-hour episodes. E4 eventually dropped the show but episodes continued to be broadcast on Channel 4 at 12:30pm, this time in the original hour-long format.

Release Date:2005-11-15

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:3

Vote Count:7

All Saints

Medical drama focusing on the working and personal lives of the doctors and nurses working on the front line of a busy inner city Emergency Department at All Saints Hospital.

Release Date:1998-02-24

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:2

Vote Count:9

Mirror, Mirror II

Two families - De Lutrelles and McFarlanes. They both live in the same house, but 130 years apart in time. De Lutrelle's: father Gervaise, mother Violette and daughter Constance. In their age, around the house were goldfields. Family emigrated from France with the remnants of their wealth, and hoping to find gold so they would restore their fortunes. McFarlan's: father Doug, mother Jenny who decided to get in a new business: eco-tourism. Guests will stay with Doug and his family - second wife Jenny, stepson Fergus, daughter Mandy, and sister-in-law Lily, who maked troubles wherever she goes! Doug has also another son, Daniel. When the series begins, Daniel decides he wants to meet the father who left him and his mother Caroline when he was just a baby. He invites himself to stay for the holidays and, with the help of the mirror, he changes everyone's life, his own included.

Release Date:1997-10-11

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Episode Count:1

Water Rats

Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001.

Release Date:1996-02-12

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Episode Count:6

Vote Count:8

Mirror, Mirror

When Jo Tiegan is given an oval-shaped mirror, as a gift, by the elderly owner of an antique shop, she is amazed to see another girl's image in the mirror instead of her own reflection. It is also quite obvious that the other girl can see her just as clearly. Jo (from the 1990's) and 'the girl in the mirror', Louisa Iredale (from 1919), later accidently find that they can also travel to each other's times through the mirror - following upon which discovery a relentless sequence of events is set in motion.

Release Date:1995-09-30

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Episode Count:4

Vote Count:5

E Street

An Australian television soap opera, set in a tough fictional inner-city district called Westside. The stories revolve around the local community there. Created by Forrest Redlich and produced by Network Ten from 24 January 1989 to 13 May 1993.

Release Date:1989-01-24

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Character:Zoran

Episode Count:32

Vote Count:5

Emma: Queen of the South Seas

Based on the life of Emma Eliza Coe, known as the "Queen of the South Seas", whose strength and cunning staved off the colonial struggle involving the United States, Great Britain, and Germany while she built her own empire. Emma’s father, the first consul in Samoa, taught his daughter at an early age the bitter truth about the fickleness of men.

Release Date:1988-11-14

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Episode Count:4

Vote Count:1

Rafferty's Rules

Rafferty's Rules was an Australian television drama series which ran from 1987 to 1990 on the Seven Network. Rafferty's Rules was one of the first programs undertaken by the Seven Network's then new in-house drama unit, going into production in May 1985 as "a 15-part courtroom drama". The program had started out as a pilot episode, recorded in early 1984 with the actor Chris Haywood in the lead role. When the pilot episode was remounted later in 1984, Chris Haywood wasn't available and the lead role was re-cast to John Wood. This second recording was eventually broadcast as the program's first episode.

Release Date:1987-02-12

Character:Ken Bascomb

Episode Count:1

Vote Count:1

Strata

The story means to develop through an uncovering of layers - strata. As writer Krumbachova stated: "With nature as a prison, an impassable barrier ... where every action is physically and psychically limited by the environment ... people are reduced to fragments of basic instinct and intelligence." Promoted as a psychological thriller, Strata provides little tension nor any real climax. The characters are ideas - not believably real.

Release Date:1983-09-01

Character:Steve

Vote Count:1

Bad Blood

During World War 2, a farmer in New Zealand murders seven people. The police, along with local Maori trackers, hunt him in the bush country.

Release Date:1982-11-12

Character:Macko Hager

Vote Count:9

Warlords of the 21st Century

It's the 21st century, the Oil Wars have made a mess of the planet and the land outside major cities is lawless. After Hunter comes to the aid of Corlie, who has run away from the villainous Straker, he takes her to the peaceful community of Clearwater. Unfortunately for the citizens of Clearwater, Straker fully intends to get Corlie back.

Release Date:1982-01-01

Character:Reuben

Vote Count:31

Phone

A primer on proper phone manners produced for the New Zealand Post Office.

Release Date:1974-07-07

Packed Away

Em and her father need to pack away her mother's belongings after her passing. A fairly simple act, but a difficult one. And her father really seems to be coping well. Or is he?

Character:Dad / Clown Dad