Messie

Messie: A Feature Length Documentary 

From Gisborne to Glastonbury, while managing friendship, whanau, and wellbeing the young, queer DJ Messie rises to fame, seen through the lenses of current club subcultures. 

Our Ask 

Our crew is looking for your support in bringing this story to life! This is a fast-paced story, made by the next generation of New Zealand Filmmakers.

Having self-funded this documentary for the last 5 months, our team is fully committed. We’re ready to go all in and capture this pivotal moment.Funds raised via Boosted will go towards the necessary costs for the crew to capture the next step in Tessa’s career. Your donation will also support keeping this story afloat until funding decisions and applications have been processed. 

What will your funds support?

• Transport
• Gear rental
• Kai (Food)

The Story 

Tessa Hills, aka Messie, is embracing the opportunity of a lifetime; navigating her rise to fame on the global stage. ‘Messie’ the feature-length documentary, follows Tessa Hills as she takes the electronic dance music scene to a new level. A behind-the-scenes journey and a reimagining of current clubbing subcultures, through the eyes of Messie and her community.

After submitting her DJ work on a Google form, Tessa was contacted to play a concert with renowned international artist Fred Again, at Coroglen Tavern in the Coromandel. After the massive success, he asked her to Support his 35,000-person show in Perth. Within 5 days, Tessa went from performing local New Zealand gigs to being the subject of a country-wide affair. With a sold-out tour of New Zealand playing alongside local and international top DJs, she is now taking her career to the global stage at Glastonbury.

Tessa grew up in the small town of Gisborne, Aotearoa, relocating to Wellington on a Full-Ride Scholarship to study commercial music. She found herself deeply intertwined in Wellington's creative, queer, youth, skate, and music culture. She experimented and created a niche in her sound that was high energy, fun, merges genres and expands diverse sounds. Tessa championed these spaces during her university years, facilitating safe and experimental spaces for young people 

Tessa considers music as a language that is felt and, DJing a way of translating it to an audience. By challenging commercialised club culture, fostering spaces of acceptance for all and creating an intangible responsibility of joint safety from a young age, Tessa has learnt that shifting ideas of change from creative concepts to a cultural movement is built from the ground up.

Her movement and contribution to current youth culture will be captured and documented in “Messie”. A behind-the-scenes look at her life in rehearsals and on the road. 

Why Now?

For Tessa, it’s not only fundamentally important but morally, that through this journey she stays authentic to herself and her communities. However, with newfound global and social media fame, the pressure comes with new challenges. She is opening up her life and journey to our documentary crew. For the last 5 months, we’ve followed her journey from Wellington to Perth and now to Glastonbury, London. With plans to record in famous UK Studios, she will DJ shows across the UK and work alongside some massive artists. With the intention to highlight her story for the future, we aim to inspire the next generation of POC, queer, youth, musicians, and artists to work hard and aim high.

The Team Behind the Messie Doco

Not only does our documentary represent youth in Aotearoa and around the world, it’s being created by youth. Our four-person production team consists of Co-Director Camden Jackson (21), Co-Director and Producer Molly Doyle (22), Creative Director Gala Baumfield (22), and story/Executive Producer Tessa Hills (21), Creative and Producers Assistant Halle Richards (21).

I'm Molly Doyle, a filmmaker and storyteller hailing from Wellington, New Zealand. I started filmmaking at age 14, writing and directing my award-winning short film, A Fishy Tale. This opened doors for me to collaborate with industry professionals at Park Road Post Production instilling a love for the world of storytelling through film. Ten years later I am now a freelance producer, director, and photographer with my everyday mahi working as the Ad and Content Director for Goodnature International. Having produced and directed multiple award-winning short films, run campaigns for NGOs/government agencies and music videos, the Messie documentary is my next passion project. More of my producing and directing mahi can be seen using the link below.

https://www.mollydoylefilms.com/photography. 

Kia ora, ko Camden ahau. I have been passionately pursuing photography since the age of 13. I credit being born and raised in the South of Auckland as contributing heavily to my eye for finding beauty in the mundane. I previously studied at Whitecliffe in Auckland and I am now based in Wellington freelancing. My recent projects include working for the Wozer Skate Mag, documenting community life in music, sports and the arts, for the ‘Rewa’ photobook. A massive highlight was my involvement with the National Geographic Photo Camp, preceding the National Geographic Alumni Class at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, DC. Now I’m looking forward to collating the premise of all my passion projects into one by creating a documentary on my talented good friend, Tessa Hills, aka 'Messie'.

Gala Baumfield, a 22-year-old creative, has been a dynamic force in the arts since childhood. Her passion for storytelling and visual expression spans multiple mediums, showcasing her versatility and innovation. Growing up immersed in the arts, Gala began acting and creating film content early, launching a YouTube channel that garnered over 2 million views and 8k subscribers by the age of 10. Professionally, Gala has excelled in content creation and presenting, leveraging her diverse background to connect with varied audiences. She has also championed Wozer Skate Mag, an inclusive skateboarding magazine dedicated to amplifying marginalised voices within the skate community. Gala’s eye for marketing, design, direction, and content ushered Wozers growth from its start-up roots. With Gala’s unique blend of inspiration from her Chinese Māori heritage and artistic talent she continues to push boundaries and inspire others through her creative endeavours. With her foot in many community spaces, she has a talent for holding people together and creating connections.

I’m Tessa Hills, also known as DJ ‘Messie’. I’m delighted to be working alongside Molly, Camden, Gala, and the support of our community for a project that is much more than a project for me. The past 3 months have quite honestly felt like a shift in the universe. My life and reality have completely altered beyond my wildest dreams. If you had told me two years ago when I began DJing, I would one day even get the chance to meet one of my biggest idols Fred Again, let alone open for him at two shows and be physically placed in front of a collective 50,000 people in one week - there’s no chance I’d believe you. Of course with being placed on such a huge scale for a country so small, it quickly begins to feel like everyone knows you and suddenly I was being handed opportunities, industry networks, interviews, gifts, higher fees, and this perception of fame. Although this has been a dream come true, the sudden lifestyle change has not been the easiest. Navigating relationships, trusting everyone’s intentions, remaining true to myself and feeling the pressure to please everyone.

Kia ora koutou, my name is Halle Richards. I'm a dynamic creative with a passion for storytelling. My journey in the creative sphere started with painting batik and shooting vlogs on family cameras whilst growing up as a third-culture kid in Indonesia. Since then it has been continuously fuelled by my insatiable curiosity to explore and celebrate diversity within’ personal untold narratives, to provoke emotion and inspire future tamariki. My experience ranges intersectionality across varying artistic mediums, but is centralised around assisting  creative endeavours whether that be through jumping behind a camera or through mediation of  logistics through strategic planning and organisation. For the past three years I have been attending a full-time undergraduate degree majoring in English and Film dedicated to enhancing and honing in on my knowledge of the field whilst also using writing articles as a tool for artistic activism, having casual involvement with Wozer Skate Mag, and working with multimedia social content creation for social media.