TISH FEST 2025: MEET FILMMAKERS THUNDERLIPS, DIRECTORS OF HELP I'M ALIEN PREGNANT

THUNDERLIPS is an identity forged over a decade of creating ambitious music videos on tiny budgets - and winning a bunch of awards and Vimeo Staff Picks. They’ve also made ads for Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand), DoorDash, McDonald’s and other clients - but their true love has always been movies, they love being on set with their friends, making and sharing artwork, facilitating a safe and empowering environment for everyone in the cast and crew to shine. A collaborative friendship propels THUNDERLIPS to apply their doubled emotion and intellect to writing scripts that feature unforgettable characters, sublime narratives and joyfully bombastic climaxes, movies that humans want to watch again and again and again, preferably in the cinema

TRAILER FOR HELP I'M ALIEN PREGNANT

TISH FEST 2025: MEET FILMMAKER THUNDERLIPS, DIRECTOR OF HELP I'M ALIEN PREGNANT

What made you fall in love with film? 

Jordan grew up in an unfamiliar continent with the original Star Wars Trilogy as his touchstone of familiarity and escape. Sean would get his neighbour to tape trashy 80s action and sci-fi movies from her cable TV. In both cases, they both loved the window into a world of swashbuckling space adventure.

What was the first film you saw in a theatre? 

Sean - Bambi (He still loves animals today). 

Jordan - The Phantom Menace (He still loves Jar Jar today).

What do you love about the collaborative process of independent filmmaking and film festivals? 

As a duo, we are super collaborative by default. We have blunted the autocratic nature of a director as a singular human by adding a second human into the mix. For us, being collaborative and open is the only way to achieve greatness in our work.

As filmmakers, what lengths have you gone to to achieve getting a shot, delivering a performance, or producing a scene? 

We’re always walking the line between pushing for more and accepting what is being offered to us. It’s a case of picking your battles. We did once spend a week in the Australian desert shooting a music video, feeling like we might get bitten by a killer snake every time we pooped into a hole in the ground. 

What's next for you as a filmmakers? 

We’re currently making a feature version of this very short film and we hope to live in the world of making strange and offbeat stories for the foreseeable future.

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SHARING IS CARING