Leela Menon

Leela’s career path is honestly wild—she kicked things off as a lawyer, grinding away for over a decade (five of those as a partner, no less) in Auckland. Then, out of nowhere in 2008, she just flips the script and dives headfirst into film. Now she’s the boss at FluroBlack, running the show as Managing Director and using all that legal know-how to wrangle productions like a pro. She started producing at Flying Fish back in 2010, cranking out TV and online ads before getting her hands dirty with long-form content. Fast forward a bit, and she’s line producing Orphans & Kingdoms—yeah, the one that snagged awards in 2014. She’s racked up credits all over the place, too. Docs like Wayne and Born Racer (2018), We Need to Talk About A.I. (2020), and Billion Dollar Heist (2023)? That’s her. She even associate produced The Dead Lands for AMC and TVNZ, which got a Best Drama Series nod at the NZ TV Awards. Not too shabby. In 2021, she produced Dawn Raid and Mothers of the Revolution with GFC Films, both going on to get Grierson Award nominations. Her plate’s always full—she and Fraser Brown have a bunch of projects cooking at FluroBlack, including Stylebender, the documentary about UFC champ Israel Adesanya, dropping in 2023. There’s also the horror flick Grafted in production. Oh, and she’s a founding member of PASC, backing Pan-Asian talent in NZ. Leela’s got her fingerprints all over the industry and isn’t slowing down.