Gay social commentator and editor of Jack magazine, David Herkt, has scooped a top award for his ground-breaking and controversial television documentary, ‘High Times'. The documentary, produced by Rachel Jean, and written, directed and researched by Herkt, scooped Best Documentary/Factual Series at this year's Screen Director's Guild annual awards. Herkt says he had previously been “tossed out” of a previous year's award ceremony due to public debacles surrounding the Queer Nation television series. “No-one wanted us near a media award show,” said Herkt. “So it was nice to be there officially and it was very nice to get the Best Documentary Series Award,” particularly when up against Marcus Lush's ‘Off the Rails' series about New Zealand's railways, and “TVNZ's multi-million dollar ‘Frontier of Dreams'”, so, “hey, it wasn't too bad getting to be a finalist let alone winning this award,” said Herkt. Herkt's documentary looked into drug use in New Zealand society, which, “despite all the rhetoric and news, no-one had really looked at the social history of illicit drug use in New Zealand,” observes Herkt. Herkt and his team interviewed over 120 people, including drug-users, police, media commentators, historians, artists and musicians; he viewed every New Zealand movie with a drug reference and viewed “practically every surviving piece of TV footage about drugs from 1965 – 2005.” “Then we had to put the huge mass of material together. I think we had more edit cuts per minute than any other New Zealand documentary ever.” The media's attitude toward drug use has been “highly hypocritical,” says Herkt, and linked with a “history of repression.” “Vast amounts of words, images and posturing are devoted to the subject, yet the sheer reality of our human experience is completely different from this authorised version and unexamined.” Herkt says he would like to think that his experience “as a gay male sensitised me to many of the issues here. You've only got to see a group of people, condemned by law, lied about by the media, yet living their lives and it was this and their story I wanted to tell.” Herkt is also particularly proud of the soundtrack, including a “punk rock track” accompanying images of helicopters raiding Northland marijuana plantations, which “was a mini-Vietnam scenario,” expertly crafted by editor Mark Taylor. With interview from Northland to Invercargill, and working days approaching 16 hours for weeks on end, it was a gruelling schedule, says Herkt, made easier by producer Rachel Jean's “no-nonsense, no bullshit, call-a-spade-a-spade” professionalism. Director of Photography Hamish Wilson was brilliant, says Herkt, having “a knack of capturing the inner radiance of people… He lets people ‘glow' and somehow captures it with his camera.” “I am a great believer in the fact that you need to know history to save you from repeating it,” says Herkt, “and I tried in this series to show history in its immediacy.” To sum up his reaction to receiving the award, Herkt says “Russell Brown, media commentator, sent me an email, saying, ‘How fucking fantastic,' and I couldn't have said it better myself. I am humbled and pleased.” Ref: GayNZ.com (d)