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Robert Sarkies (born 1969) is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter. Sarkies grew up in the city of Dunedin on the South Island, and both of his feature films released to date were shot in or near Dunedin. He began making short films as a teenager together with fellow filmmaker Simon Perkins. After winning an international competition for the short film Dreamers, Sarkies began work on his most ambitious short film at the time: the adventure comedy Scarfies (1996), which received four international awards and helped attract financing for Scarfies (1999), Sarkies' feature debut. Sarkies wrote the screenplay for Scarfies together with his younger brother, playwright and performer Duncan Sarkies. The film, which received seven awards, including Best Film and Best Director at the New Zealand Film Awards, is part comedy, part thriller, and part celebration of student life in Dunedin. Scarfies was later released on video in the US under the title Crime 101. Sarkies' second feature film is the thriller based on true events Out of the Blue, based on the Aramoana massacre of 1990, during which an armed gunman killed thirteen people in a seaside town near Dunedin. The film emphasizes realism rather than melodrama, partly through handheld camera work and a naturalistic acting style. Some residents of Aramoana expressed disagreement with the making of the film; others who lost loved ones in the tragedy agreed to be interviewed by screenwriters Sarkies and Graeme Tetley. In New Zealand, Out of the Blue became the tenth most successful local film released theatrically (not adjusted for inflation) and received six Qantas Film and Television Awards in September 2008, including Best Film — Budget Over $1 Million. As of October 2008, Out of the Blue had a 91 percent rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Before making Out of the Blue, the Sarkies brothers worked together on the screenplay for a fantasy film called The Magnificent Magic Fingers. The budget for Magic Fingers was estimated at at least 20 million New Zealand dollars. It is still unclear whether Magic Fingers will join Peter Jackson's unmade Blubberhead as one of the great fantasy films that never emerged from the ground down. In 2010, the television series This Is Not My Life, directed by Sarkies, debuted on New Zealand television. Hopefully Robert will consider a major role for Andy Faulkner, whom he directed with great comic effect in the 2006 Ford Fairmont Ghia television commercial.

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