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Peacocke won attention with a slate of distinctive music videos (eg. Mint Chicks Vodafone award-winner Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!). His drama debut, Manurewa, re-imagines events surrounding a high profile 2008 liquor store shooting. At the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, it won the Crystal Bear for best short in the Generation 14plus section. He has also won awards for commercials, this is Sam's first documentary of any length.

Laurence is the currently head of Wellington based film production, rental and sales company Rubber Monkey, more commonly known for it's primary role in the production of NZ Film Secondhand Wedding. Previously a veteran Music Producer based in Sydney he has been involved in projects ranging from Australian Idol, Popstars (AU), a range of writing and production credits incl Artists Guy Sebastian, Sophie Monk, Short Stack, Slinky Minx, Paulini, Kate DeAraugo, Westlife and more. Currently he is developing a range of future projects with fellow producer Grant Roa through their partnership venture Pacific Lightworks. Their first foray into Feature Film being Shihad: Beautiful Machine.

The six foot tall, green eyed, Maori boy raised in Porirua Wellington is now a familiar face to most people in both New Zealand and Australia. In 2001 Roa impressed audiences worldwide with his fabulous portrayal of Uncle Rawiri in the award winning Oscar nominated New Zealand feature film Whale Rider with Keisha Castle Hughes, Cliff Curtis and Rawiri Paratene. Other film credits, among his ten feature films, include roles in Separation City along side Joel Edgerton, Danielle Cormack, Rhona Mitra, Les Hill and Thomas Kretschmann and James Cameron's Avatar.

Roa has also had his fair share of work in television with roles on New Zealands' longest running show Shortland Street, The Lost Children, The Hot House and the children's horror series The Killian Curse amongst others.

In addition to this, Roa loves comedy and his work on Facelift and the very popular McPhail and Gadsby back in the 90s reflect this. Shihad: beautiful Machine is Roa producing debut but he is putting the knowledge that he garnered from all his past work into creating something special.

David White started out as an actor with Guest roles on "The Strip" and "The Tribe". Since this fleeting foray in front of the camera, he turned his hand to producing and directing. He started with music videos which won an array of awards before producing the Independent feature film The Last Great Snail Chase (2007) and most recently and obviously Shihad: Beautiful Machine. He has just finished directing two other short documentaries one for BBC knowledge other the for NZFC and has array of different projects on the horizon.

Cushla Dillon is an award-winning film editor and screenwriter with over 20 years experience, and has a passion for story-telling in both dramatic form and documentary. She won Best Editor on a Feature Film for TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES and SNAKESKIN at the NZ Film and TV Awards, and in recent years has edited some of the most successful NZ feature documentaries, including Academy Award-short listed documentary feature THIS WAY OF LIFE and the critically acclaimed TROUBLE IS MY BUSINESS. In 2008 she attended the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam with her screenplay, A GUIDE TO MAGICAL THINKING, currently in development. Since completing BEAUTIFUL MACHINE in 2011, she has been editing two documentary features, JERUSALEM/HIRUHAMA and PICTURES OF SUSAN, as well as additional editing for Berlin Film Festival selected MAORI BOY GENIUS. Earlier this year, Cushla was Jury Member at FIFO, the Oceania Documentary Film Festival held annually in Tahiti. Cushla's continued attraction to the documentary form is her respect for a genre that continues to evolve, with a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to "challenge our perceptions of truth and fiction".